Another Wish
by Lysa-uk
Summary: After a fight with a demon, Willow and Xander find themselves in a strange dimension that forces them to reassess their lives and their relationship.
1. Default Chapter

Title: Another Wish

Authors: Martin79 and Lysa-uk

Feedback: Please do, to either or 

Rating: PG-13

Spoilers: 'The Wish', and other S3 stuff.

Disclaimer: All _Buffy_ characters copyrighted to Joss Whedon/Mutant Enemy etc. All originals copyrighted to the authors.

Main Characters: Willow and Xander.

Summary: After a fight with a demon, Willow and Xander find themselves in a strange dimension that makes them reassess their lives and their relationship.

Background: This story is set at the beginning of Season Four.

Notes: I'll try and keep this brief. This was a project that was written mostly by Martin79, but I was asked to kind of co-write, although all I really did was add stuff to the more personal aspect of the fic because I really believe in this specific relationship. Any praise at all should go to him, go check out his other stuff here . Also, I just wanted to point out that the strange dimension Willow and Xander find themselves in is the same as the one depicted in 'The Wish', only their vampire selves weren't dispatched in this version. If that makes any sense at all. Huh. Looks like me being brief really can't happen.

* * *

"Willow, get ready," ordered Buffy as her small group approached a vast stone Mausoleum at the far end of Sunnydale's Restfield Cemetery. "Giles, take the left and, Xander, go around the back."

"Again! Why am I round the back again?" Xander replied, shivering as the biting winter winds hit him once again. "C'mon, put me back on the front line, Sarge."

"After the last time, Indestructo-guy?" glared Buffy.

"Tiny fracture," Xander replied sheepishly. "Minuscule, actually…"

"Xander, your wrist was in plaster for a week. We're not going after a lost cat here," she added sternly. "This thing…the sprocket set…can really do a lot of damage."

"Sassprokasa" added Giles, correcting her.

"Right…Sasquatch," she said quickly. "It's killed once already that we know of, and I don't want to give it another chance. I mean, you saw that sketch thing. It's over 7ft tall. Horns and spikes everywhere and…and all that ooky stuff coming from it's head, right, Giles?"

"The book went into slightly more detail but that's about it," Giles sniffed, himself suffering from the cold, "now stop squabbling and let's get this over and done with. You would've thought a graveyard in California might be a touch warmer," he muttered to himself.

"Okay, okay. Book wins," Xander grumbled. "I'll go and wait in the mud for the all clear."

"But the back is gonna be the place with the most action," comforted Willow with a smile. "Uh-huh, action central. 'Cos when he runs in terror from us, where do you think he's gonna go? You're pretty central, Xand."

"Yeah," he said thoughtfully. "Yeah, good point. I'll go and get into my Key Guy position," he said walking away with a confident stride and a broad grin.

"Of course, should the demon flee from us, terrible sight that we are, he'll flatten Xander into a big hairy pancake," Buffy said with a shrug.

"Hey, you sent him round the back, don't look at me," frowned Willow. "Anyway, if this spell works there will be no hairy pancake."

"Which can only be a good thing," added Buffy. "Right, everyone into positions!" She said, turning her head slightly as she heard a yell and a dull thud coming from the side of the building.

* * *

Xander had tripped over a tree root and landed face down in a puddle of mud, or goo of some kind. You could never be too sure in Sunnydale. As he untangled himself he looked up at the fearsome stone building that was now crumbling and eroded through its years of neglect. It had probably not been visited in decades, let alone its grounds tended to.

_Why is it I always end up in a graveyard_? Xander thought, _even if we were trying to locate a lost dog or…or a lost hamster we would end up back here or in some other burial ground._

This time, however, it was a lost student, Nancy Esposito, who they were on the hunt for. Nancy had disappeared from U.C. Sunnydale two days ago and her trashed dorm room was swimming in a thick green goop. Xander had quipped at the time that they should launch a search for Slimer, the loveable gluttonous spook from the 'Ghostbusters' films, but no one had found it funny. It was him who had first discovered Nancy to be missing when he had been due to take her on a date that night. Instead, he found her dorm room obliterated and oozed with no sign of her, and that's when he called the Scooby gang to arms.

Giles found that the ooze was the calling card of Sassprokasa, a nasty demon that preyed upon young women, kidnapping and torturing its victims until their souls had been reduced to nothing. That's when it struck for the last time, sucking the remains of the soul to feed its own life energy, and devouring all the meat on the body to placate its hunger. The demon had been tracked down to the cemetery - not too hard considering it had left a thin, telltale trail of slime - and now the gang were closing in for the kill - all except Xander, that is.

He had led the posse here. It was his mission and his missing date, so he felt he should be up on the front line instead of standing in the cold and staring at a stone, featureless wall. Whiling the time away, he tried to make out shapes in its cracks but could fine nothing of any note except perhaps a couple of chips that kind of made a portion resemble Nicole Kidman. He was staring so hard that it barely registered when part of it came crashing down and a slab knocked him flying into the mess of weeds and filth that was decomposing behind the Mausoleum.

Sassprokasa accompanied the rubble, flying backward through the hole and landing on Xander's leg. It lay unconscious as he struggled to get free, making only tiny movements, fearing that it could wake up at any time.

Steadily he moved, inch by inch, freeing only a few centimetres of limb at a time. Suddenly the creature grunted and Xander's blood ran ice cold as he felt its warm, exhaled air. Like many other times during the past few years, he wished he had Buffy's slayer strength, or at least enough to easily pull himself free or keep the demon at bay should it wake up.

Speaking of Buffy, where was she? And the others come to that. What if they were already dead and with a last ounce of power Buffy had propelled her foe through the wall ready for him to defeat. Maybe he **was** Key Guy after all.

Gently and quietly he moved his knee out from behind one of the demon's scaled shoulders, and he briefly froze when it grunted and opened one of its yellow eyes.

Xander let out a yelp and brought his knee up quickly, smashing through a large horn on the left of its head. "Oh, great, Xander," he muttered to himself. "Make it even angrier. Why not poke it in the eye and make fun of its mom next?"

But Sassprokasa wasn't doing anything much. In fact, its once-bright red skin colour had degenerated into a muddy grey hue, still frozen in the same position and giving off a weird stench. The smell was close to that of glue or molten plastic, and made Xander pretty light-headed. He was close to passing out altogether when the sound of familiar voices kept him holding on and Willow appeared from the other side of the broken wall.

"Hey, hey, he's out here!" she shouted back inside. "And he's all…ewww!"

"Why is he all…ewww!?" Buffy appeared beside her. "Is the spell supposed to do that?"

"Think so," Willow replied. "It's supposed to dissolve the demon's fragile bone structure leaving just a big, old melty blob, to collapse into itself."

Xander tried to keep his eyes open, forgetting where he was for the moment and pushing the decomposing demon's body aside. "What's all…arrgh!" he shouted, scrambling away from it as quickly as he could with the pain still shooting up and down his leg.

"It's moving! It's moving!" Willow screamed. "And I think it spawned something."

"It can't be, the spell was very specific," explained Giles. "The demon should be dead by now, and in any case, Sassprokasa find it hard to reproduce."

"Then what's that moving in the trees, Mr Magic?" replied Buffy, treading over the demon's remains to get a better look.

"My God, it's hideous," said Giles, craning his neck to look. "Willow, we must try the spell again, get ready."

"No! No! Human alert! Definitely human!" Xander shouted with all his strength, although to anyone listening to him it sounded a slightly higher pitch than his normal voice.

"It's Xander," Willow said, relieved. "Hey you-you okay?" she asked.

"Little sludgy and I can barely move my leg," he croaked. "What happened?"

"Spell by The Amazing Willow," replied Buffy. "She's getting to be quite the Sabrina."

"Wow, it knocked him through the wall?" Xander asked, straining to sit upright.

"Yeah, huge bolts of power shot from my fingertips and was like 'back demon or thou shalt feel my wrath'," Willow described with a huge grin on her face that seemed infectious as she looked at him and Buffy.

"Very impressive," added Buffy.

"Oh, come on," sniffed Giles. "The demon stumbled backwards and tripped over a statue. Hardly the stuff of legend."

"But I made it sound more exciting, more impressive," Willow said, frowning at Giles as she and Buffy helped Xander into a more comfortable position and moved away from the demon's remains that were already becoming part of the earth.

"Still impressed, though," Xander said, trying to comfort her. "Turning an unpronounceable demon to mulch has to beat pulling a rabbit out of a hat."

"Why did you say that?" Buffy shouted, giving her Watcher a brief whack on the arm.

"Buffy, please remember that you are much stronger than me," said Giles, rubbing his hurt arm. "What you think is a little tap can be quite painful!"

"Oh, I didn't forget," Buffy smiled sweetly.

"So what about Nancy?" asked Xander. "Is she…? I mean, did you find her?"

"No trace, I'm afraid," replied Buffy solemnly. "He probably finished her off hours ago"

Xander didn't reply, he couldn't find the words. Since his relationship with Cordelia finished and his affair with Willow had to end there hadn't been anyone new on the horizon apart from a brief date with Anya. Then along came Nancy, with long brown hair, big eyes and a shared taste for life's absurdities. She never believed all the vampire and demon tales that were bandied around town and would probably be enjoying a good laugh at it all if she knew how her life ended, or indeed if she had survived.

"Right, well," announced Giles breaking through the silence. "If we are finished here, a brief patrol before bedtime won't hurt."

"What about Xander?" asked Willow. "Are you fit to travel?"

"Maybe," he replied, trying to stand up but feeling the pain in his leg kicking in again. "I think I'd better give it another half-hour," he said, resuming his seat on the ground.

"How about carrying him home first?" suggested Giles.

"Great idea," Xander spat back. "Parade the freak through the streets. We could have a ticker-tape parade too and everyone could sing 'Hail the conquering loser!'"

"Tough patient," noted Buffy.

"I could stay and look after him for a little while," Willow suggested. "I don't have anywhere to be and Oz's gig doesn't start until ten."

They all agreed it would be for the best so everyone said their goodbyes for the night as Buffy and Giles left for another graveyard.

"This sucks," grumbled Xander. "Everyone else survives with little scratches, I get a ten ton demon on my limb. I hate having all the powers of Mighty Joe Public!"

"Buffy's really the only one with superpowers," replied Willow, taking a seat beside him. "Me and Giles are normal."

"Hey, you both do magic, anything comes at either of you and you can just poof it away or turn it into something. What can I do, stare at it? Hope it dies laughing?" he continued.

"Is that bin comfortable?" said Willow quietly.

"Bin?"

"Your garbage bin, Oscar the grouch," she replied.

"Hey, I am not Oscar the grouch! You would complain too if you had my injuries!" he yelled at her.

"I have had and worse, but if you don't want me here then fine, wallow in your self pity and sludge!" she yelled back and stood up.

"Don't go, please," he said quickly and apologetically. "I'm sorry, I…arrgh!" he said, straining his leg as he leaned forward.

Willow immediately sat back down and rolled up his trouser leg to examine it. Taking out a tissue from her bag she began to wipe the blood away tenderly. She looked back up at him, surprised that his eyes were fixed on her instead of the leg wound, and she quickly looked away. The intensity of his stare had caught her off-guard, and now her hand was faltering above the gash she had been working on. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath to calm herself, telling herself that she didn't just get a hot flush over the guy she was supposed to be over.

When she finally plucked up the courage to lift her eyes toward him again, he was still looking at her with…something…in his eyes that she couldn't quite read, but that may have had something to do with the fact that her brain had temporarily stopped working.

Her eyes met his, and just for a second, she stopped breathing, and that familiar ache to be in his arms rushed over her again. It was something she thought she'd gotten out of her system when they'd had their little 'incident', but now…here it was, rearing its ugly head at her, taunting her and telling her that he was looking at her with the same thoughts in his head. It told her to just lean forward those few inches, just close the distance between them and then…

"Thank you for staying," Xander uttered slowly.

"My pleasure," she smiled, the tension breaking. "Is there anything more I can do?"

"I don't know, do you still have that nurse uniform?" he grinned.

Willow blushed "Xander, don't…" she said, breaking eye contact with him and ducking her head.

"C'mon," he said playfully. "Little white dress, stockings. I think it would really help me."

"Don't do this," she stuttered. "I can't… What about Oz?…I…"

"I know," Xander replied, his expression suddenly serious again, hanging his head.

"You know what," she said. "I can do a quick healing spell to get you up and home if…if you want?" she offered.

"Yes," he replied. "Yes, that's a good idea. More healing. Get us both out of here."

Willow kept her eyes from meeting his again and kept her gaze firmly on her bag, still stocked with stuff from her previous spell. She laid out a couple of items on the ground and searched around for more. "Oh, shoot! No sage!" she exclaimed. "I-I need to go to the Magic Box. I'll be back soon."

"Can't it be done without sage?" he asked. "Or a sage substitute, like…leaves or…bark something like that? Please stay?" he pleaded.

Willow still avoided eye contact, getting up and starting to walk away "Don't worry, I'll be back in a flash. Don't go running away now," she said with a smile.

"Just a quick couple lengths of the Atlantic and I'll be right with you," he smiled back.

When she hurried off, she glanced back at him, only briefly, but with one of those reassuring grins he remembered so well from their past. Somehow, seeing her bright, hopeful grin and the thought that she would be back with him soon made him cheer up, but a part of him was still angry about the accident.

Xander was sick of being ordinary.

When he joined up with Buffy he felt that his life was about to get more exciting, if a little death defying. He was one of them, but slowly they all seemed to reveal themselves to be different. Willow trained with Giles and was on her way to becoming a full witch, Oz was a werewolf and even Angel was revealed to be a vampire. Now he was inched out altogether. Everyone was something and he was still nothing. Maybe they should've had a power-sharing thing. Obviously, the deity responsible for granting such things thought otherwise, deciding to keep him mortal. Anything would've done: invisibility, elasticity, human fireball, human ice-block…anything.

Buffy and Willow had both turned him down in the past and both have taken supernatural lovers, Oz the werewolf and Angel, a vampire. Perhaps that was what he should be; a vampire, strong, powerful and immortal.

As he thought about it more and more it became a stronger desire, a wish. The slime covering various parts of his body started bubbling and heating up. It multiplied, thinned out and spread throughout his body. Xander started to panic, but he couldn't move his body as it spread up to his neck. He tried to move his hands to cover his face but it was too late, the slime washed over him and began glowing green.

The next few moments he was in a limbo, drowning in something, unable to open his eyes, cry out, feel or smell anything. Inside he was terrified.

"Wsssshhhh…aaaagh" he screamed as he woke up with a start, like a gentle jolt from a bad nightmare. Covered in sweat he looked around him at a dark Sunnydale and wondered how he made it from the cemetery to the centre of town. Perhaps the ooze was like a teleporter and he could get back to it just by saying 'Beam me up, Slimey', but then he started to feel his leg again. It was moving and he couldn't feel any pain or indeed anything at all.

The sludge was trickling from his body and just lay in a puddle next to his feet. Dusting himself down he noticed he was wearing different trousers, more leathery and a black jacket, too, over a white vest, but strangely enough he couldn't feel the cold at all. The people in the streets were all wearing large overcoats and scarves, scurrying away, obviously frightened of something. A small girl with brown hair, perhaps fifteen, sixteen years old, shot past him followed by another girl with short red hair who was also dressed head to toe in leather gear.

Willow…it looked like Willow.

Running to catch up with her he tripped over a broken piece of sidewalk and slammed into the wall. "Dammit!" he shouted, thumping his fist in to the wall. His hand embedded itself into the brick, his fist still clenched in the mortar of the building and he looked on in amazement at how deep it went in and how painless he now felt.

In fact, he noticed he was feeling more ruthless, even hungry and his face began to contort into a different shape. He touched it, running his hand all over his head, feeling all the bumps and bruises he now had, even though the rest of his body remained the same.

The shape his face had become reminded him of an image, an image he had seen many times before, and frantically he examined inside his mouth, cutting his finger in the process on something sharp. Taking out his finger and staring at the blood trickling over his skin, he came to one conclusion: either Mr. Matheson, his dentist, had been secretly filing his teeth into a point while he was in the chair…or he had now become a vampire!


	2. Chapter Two

The first thought that struck Xander was the fact that he didn't feel any different. He always thought that if he ever became a vampire (a recurring nightmare he had ever since he'd learnt of their existence and when he'd had to stake Jesse) that he would be able to feel it. When he ran his hands over his chest he felt no activity, no vibrations from the heart, lungs or organs of any kind, and it was then that he realised that he wasn't drawing breath any more. He still had a soul, though, and one that made him suddenly think of the girl with red hair he had seen a few moments before and he realised he had to find her to see if it was Willow, a familiar face to help make sense of all the madness and mixed emotions he was now feeling.

Dashing around the corner he found a sight he wasn't expecting. Willow had her face buried in the young brunette's neck just as pints of blood were seeping out of it at an alarming rate.

"W-Willow?" he cried out as the sight of her feasting sickened him to his stomach.

"Xander?" she looked up with her full vamp face on, flashing a bloody grin when she saw him, familiarity and happiness evident through the mask she seemed to be wearing. "Want some?"

"No I, uh, just ate," he told her, thinking on his feet and words falling out of his mouth awkwardly. "Football player. You know how those fill me up. Because, as you know, I can't get enough of the blood, so tasty and not at all like ketchup."

Xander realised then that it wasn't just the blood and the poor dying victim that made him feel ill. He was more sickened by the sight of her once beautiful face twisted and deformed into a mass of wrinkles and bumps. Briefly he wondered if that's what she would look like in old age - not a pretty sight - and if that's what it does to her, then what would being a vampire do to someone like his grandpa? Every feature of his face would probably be wiped out whenever he fed.

"You feeling okay?" Willow said. "Sure you don't want?" she asked, holding out the limp victim like she were offering candy. "She's not dead yet, makes it more tingly and fresh. I don't like it when they die, loses the tang, kinda like flat coke."

"No, I'm good," he replied, appearing slightly flustered. "Just banged my head chasing some young virgin."

"Poor baby, I'll kiss it better for you," Willow purred, striding over and planting a kiss on his lips.

Xander felt many emotions but the passion of the kiss didn't register with him. Willow's lips were cold and numb, reminding him of the times in his early years when he used to practise kissing on his hand. He could feel the death in her. She moved her arms around his waist and lower, slipping one hand down the side of his trousers, making him lose what little concentration he had around her.

"Sh-shall we go somewhere else?" he asked, removing her hand, not wanting to continue at the present time when his head was swimming with so many thoughts.

"My boy's shy all of a sudden," Willow said with a smile, bringing her cold hand up to his face and trailing her fingers down his cheek in a way that made him shiver. "Okay, let's get into the mood first," she smiled, taking his hand and leading him through the streets towards The Bronze.

* * *

The Bronze was swarming with vampires fighting, drinking and making out with each other. _Not much has changed here_, he thought, _apart from the fact that the patrons are now the undead and they had the living chained up like animals._ The club was filled with screams, something the vampires seemed to thrive on judging the excitement and blood-lust on their faces, coming from every corner of the club. The cries filled the air, the victims begging for mercy or for death, for an end to the pain and torture and agony.

To say that Xander felt nervous walking through the various creatures of the night was an understatement, even with the reassurance he was giving himself that he had nothing to fear at the present time as he was now one of them. As they strode through it was clear to him that their incarnations really owned the place. Willow seemed to be really at home here - quite popular, actually, meeting and greeting people, commanding their respect from her very presence, which left him feeling a little proud of her, even if this Willow was a vampire. He had always thought that she deserved better from the people in their supernatural little town, at least now she was getting that. What surprised him more was the fact that they seemed equally pleased to see him, too. They were also afraid of him. He could feel it radiating from them, something his vampiric nature could detect easily. He liked that feeling.

"Willow, Xander, hey," a distinctly familiar male voice cried out from a sofa a few feet away from them. "Xander, mate, over here!"

Xander turned around to see the smiling faces of Spike and Drusilla clearly enjoying themselves.

"Looks like your number one fan's back again," Willow snorted.

Spike, beer bottle in hand, dropped a plate of chicken wings onto a nearby table, leapt up and walked over towards them. "Xander, thought I'd missed you, been waiting in here for a bleeding hour and a half. Me and Dru are going for a Chinese later, boatload of tourists from Hong Kong are expected around midnight, you up for it?" he asked.

Xander had never seen Spike look so happy, and it definitely unnerved him. He still remembered Spike's last visit to Sunnydale when he had kidnapped Willow and him, wanting to force her into casting a love spell over Drusilla to heal their split. Remembering the events made the anger swell up inside him. Spike and Drusilla seemed to be still together wherever he seemed to be now, which surprised him a little, but he had the urge to land a fist on the blonde vampire's grinning visage.

"I don't think so, Spike," Xander replied sarcastically. "Now run along and play elsewhere else will you? Preferably somewhere hot or pointy!" he said, grabbing Willow's hand with force and walking away.

"Oh, I get it! That's a good one, mate, zinging the Brit!" Spike cried out excitedly. "I like it! You got me good! Top bloke, that. Top bloke. Gotta love that guy," he said to anyone that could hear him while Drusilla seemed annoyed at her partner straying from their seat.

"So glad you finally got rid of him," Willow said. "Always said he should be staked. I mean, what kind of loser would want to stick around here for two years?"

_Spike's been here for two years! _Xander thought to himself. Then, as the rusty cogs of his brain began to turn, he realised,if Spike never left Sunnydale, then this must be an alternate reality, one where he and Willow were vampires and there was obviously no Buffy around. He had guessed on an alternate reality when he first arrived. It was either another dimension, some kind of scary future, or even a dream. When he looked closer at Willow's outfit – not that he could **stop** looking at it - he recognised the leather clad ensemble from the time her vampire doppelganger had turned up a few months ago, and somehow he figured he was in her world now.

"Hey, wicked Willow!" a girl shouted out from the other side of the room. She was a tall black brunette wearing a figure-hugging maroon dress and Willow seemed to know her.

"Deadly Deena, sexy as ever," smiled Willow walking over towards Deena, putting her arms around her waist and giving her a deep kiss.

Xander wasn't sure where to put his eyes. _Does becoming a vampire make you gay now?_ He asked himself. It would certainly explain a few things – all the leather, for example. It took all of his willpower not to stare at the two girls making out, especially when one of them was his best friend since forever, but one tiny glimpse seemed to eradicate all memories of a childhood Willow from his brain momentarily.

He tore his eyes away, looking in another direction and hoping to see someone else he could talk to, at least for the time being. Searching the crowd he caught a faint glimpse of a man over by one of the pool tables, Jesse. Xander rubbed his eyes in disbelief but upon his second look the man had vanished. Willow and her friend seemed to be getting more intimate by the minute, so he decided that now would be a good time to do a looking around. He walked away in the opposite direction and saw the last person he expected, Nancy the missing student, sitting by the bar.

"Nancy, is that you?" he asked, walking up to her.

"Xandie, hey, come to buy me a drink?" she asked, seeming to recognise him instantly.

"No, I…" he began, looking for a logical way to voice his question. Eventually, he realised that now was hardly the time for tact. "Hey, this may sound funny, but did you arrive here a couple days through some kind of slime black hole thing?"

"Yeah," she said, surprised. "Hey, how did you know about that?"

"Same thing happened to me," he mumbled, sounding somehow embarrassed.

"All I remember is being in my dorm room when this really gooey creature thing crashes through and, like, starts chasing me round the place," she explained with excited hand gestures. "If the warden found out I would've been in, like, sooo much trouble. I ran and hid in the kitchen, slime all over me, which was just ick. My best pair of pumps, too. It took me into some dark room and I just prayed and prayed that I could just disappear, and I just…did. I woke up here and…you know?" she said with a coy smile and fluttering eyelashes to jog his memory.

"What?" he asked, confused.

"Remember, I saw you that night?" she asked. "You, y'know, siphoned me," she told him, her low voice full of innuendo.

"Do you mean **sired you**? **I** sired **you**? **Me**?" Xander stuttered. "And you're a **vampire**?"

"Yeah, you," Nancy said slowly moving her hand down Xander's chest. "And my offer that night is still good if you wanna cash it…"

"Hey!" a snarl came from behind them. Willow was standing there and glaring with her full vampire face on.

"W-Willow? I was, was just…" Xander stuttered.

"Boss wants to see us, now!" growled Willow, taking his hand and leading him away.

She turned back once, Xander noticed, to give Nancy one more glare, one that left him in absolutely no doubt that this Willow was definitely different to his Willow. He watched as the other girl shrunk away, obviously more than a little afraid of the redhead.

"Y'know, back there, we were just talking," he tried to explain. "It was nothing, really."

"Baby, why would you want her when you can have me all to yourself?" Willow purred. "Especially when any night now she could meet with an accident…"

"Well, w-what about Deena?" he asked. "I don't think I like you two kissing like that," Xander said, trying in vain to stand up to her, even though he worried that his fear was showing through. He knew his vampire persona wouldn't take stand for anything and that was the person he had to be now, even if it was only for survivals sake. Then he realised…this was his chance to be the person he had always wanted to be – minus the vampire part – and in this world there'd be disappointment from his friends to deal with, no recriminations, no regret, and the thought of it certainly appealed to him.

"I thought you liked that," Willow said, cutting through his thoughts. "Deena's going to join us later too for fun-time," she told him, a grin that spoke volumes on her face as her hand traced his chest through the tank top he was wearing.

He grinned back at her. "That's alright, then, as long as—"

"Willow! Xander! Hurry along!" A fearsome voice rang throughout the club.

Xander had the shock of his life when he saw an elderly, gruesome vampire snarling out of a back room. A vampire that looked suspiciously like the Master.

"Goody, school time!" Willow said excitedly.

* * *

Xander shuddered as Willow led him into a room that reminded him of his time at Sunnydale High. Not that he wanted to be reminded of it at all. Maybe it was the five rows of desks that were laid out in front of the blackboard that did it. Or maybe it was the fact that some of other students were the exact same people he had gone to school with, and the teacher at the front of the freaky version of the classroom was Mr Moody, his old science teacher.

Mr Moody stood beside the Master, looking thin, pale and ill, wearing a plaid jumper and round spectacles, holding some chalk and a pointer in his hand in front of a bunch of disorganised assembled students, the ones Xander didn't know ranging from the young to the old. Xander felt a sliver of sympathy in his gut for the man, but not enough to warrant anything more lingering and substantial, which worried him.

The blackboard in front of the class caught Xander's attention from his musings about his new vampire state, the lesson topics certainly not the same as he remembered from his old teachers classes. Instead of the scientific terms the Willow in his world loved to learn and memorise, it was headed with subjects such as 'Enemies', 'Killing', 'Hunting' and 'Turning'.

It was about then that Xander noticed himself and Willow labelled up to give the hunting lecture.

"Fresh meat, boss?" noted Willow.

"An immature rabble, ripe for slaughter by the White-hats, unless we can drum some sense and instinct into them! They already have the hunger and the bloodlust now they need to be able to control it and use it properly!" snarled The Master.

"So this is like Vampire High?" Xander asked.

"If you must call it that then I suppose, yes," the Master snapped. "Why are you questioning me? It was your idea, was it not, Xander?" he replied.

"My modest baby must've hit his head hard," Willow cooed seductively in Xander's ear, her hand trailing up his arm to absently twirl some of his hair around her fingers. "Drummed all the memory out."

"If it brings more ideas like this one then I'll be glad to pound it into the earth until daybreak," the Master smiled, a hideous and disturbing sight to someone who had been fully human only a few hours ago. "Our numbers are swelling and a much smaller percentage have been taken from us since classes began for the fledglings, and I owe it all to Xander's cunningly evil mind."

Xander felt quite proud of himself – well, his vampire self at least. But then, he figured they were the same person, minus a soul and plus a little bloodlust. At least one version of him was doing well. _The undead always seem to get the breaks in Sunnydale,_ he thought, thinking briefly of Angel's relationship with Buffy before turning his attention, like Willow and The Master, to the lesson.

At the minute Moody was lecturing, very unsteadily, on the enemies they should look out for. Three pictures were pinned up onto the blackboard portraying Giles and Oz in various obscure poses, obviously taken via some kind of surveillance cameras.

"…These two White-hats are the most dangerous of the resistance forces we have encountered so we…" Moody trailed off with a stutter as he noticed one of the students had a hand in the air. "Yes…whoever you are…?"

"Kevin," replied the vampire. Kevin was well built with blonde hair and dark eyes, wearing a Sunnydale Razors jacket and fidgeting in his seat so much it made Xander want to get up and slap him.

"Yes, Kevin?" replied Moody.

Xander turned to the Master to gauge his reaction, and he saw the older vampire begin to silently seethe with rage at the thought of someone questioning his teachings, albeit through Mr Moody.

"Yeah," Kevin continued. "Why didn't we just kill these guys when we took their photos? If we got that close to them, why didn't we capture them then?" he asked.

"Dude's got a point," piped up his neighbour, a slim vampire dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans. "They can't be that tough, and why white hats? That's like totally pointing them out to us."

"W-well you see it's v-very simple," stuttered Moody.

"Do not question your teachings, young one!" roared The Master. "I am willing to overlook impertinence if something useful is brought to the proceedings, but this foolish chit-chat doesn't interest me. The White-hats are our enemies and all that you need to know is to be wary of them! Although at this moment in time I'm willing to hand you both over to them tied together with your own intestines! Now don't interrupt classes again!"

Both Kevin and his neighbour went strangely quiet which to Xander indicated more of a teenage strop than through actual fear that The Master would carry out his promise. Newly vamped, they probably felt stronger, and it was obvious that they didn't like having to answer to someone else.

"He's totally mad that we're gonna kill them and he hasn't," whispered the neighbour. "He's probably scared of us."

"I bet we could take him," Kevin laughed in a hushed tone. "Just look at him, ugly old guy, bet he has to put a false set of fangs in before he feeds off anyone".

"Yeah, we could totally get medieval on his medieval ass," laughed his companion.

Both felt their seats yanked backwards and they found themselves looking up at a smiling Willow.

"Tch tch, naughty boys," she taunted in a sing-song voice. "You bad-mouth the boss and it'll go on your permanent records."

At the back of the room, close to where the boys were sitting, piles of old bar stools were stacked up. Willow let the chairs drop to the floor, grabbed one of the idle stools and broke off two of its legs, throwing one to Xander in the process. To his amazement he caught it perfectly, and he found himself at her side in next to no time, standing next to the two young vampires with a thrill running through him like a bolt of lightning.

Willow took her weapon and swiftly thrust it through Kevin's heart and waited for Xander to do the same. It didn't take him long to dispatch the second vampire in a similarly quick way, and the embrace he received from Willow in reward was enough to keep the thrill going.

"Class dismissed!" Willow said with an evil glare that warned the rest of the assembled fledgling nightcrawlers.

"Loyalty!" boomed The Master. "Such loyalty within my ranks is necessity rather than choice if you wish to survive here. I do not make a habit of killing my underlings so early in their afterlives, but it helps to keep a healthy amount of fear buzzing through the air. Look to Xander and Willow for your inspiration, my children, and you shall not put a foot wrong."

A silence swept throughout the class while they took in The Master's words and his two henchmen returned to his side.

"Well done, you have pleased me," he growled to them once Moody had begun the lesson again.

"Pleased enough to let me have time with puppy?" asked Willow, her face lighting up.

"Very well," the Mater snarled, handing Willow a key from his pocket. "Your lecture is in ten minutes, don't be late!"

Willow grabbed Xander's hand before he knew what was happening, grinning as she pulled him from the room with a look of pure delight on her face.

* * *

Willow ran through the Restfield Cemetery clutching her large canvas bag tightly. Normally, she had no troubles with the queue in the Magic Box (because there never was one), but so many people were rushing around buying supplies. The full moon brought them all out: Wicca's, hippies, white witches, devil worshippers… All of them gathering ingredients to make any number of spells that could do anything from give a love rival large boils to creating Armageddon. Willow really hoped that the end of the world would hold off just long enough for her to bring Xander back to health.

Reaching the demolished mausoleum where she had left him, her eyes quickly scanned the grounds of the cemetery for her friend. Finding nothing filled her with a huge sense of worry and regret. _Was this the right place? _She asked herself.It had to be. All the holes were in the right places and Sassprokasa's remains, while still melting into the ground, were recognisable enough. Even in Sunnydale, it was highly unlikely that another mausoleum had been wrecked in the same cemetery by a similar demon to the one they'd fought just a little while ago. Checking the bushes and surrounding area, she found no signs of Xander or any hints that he may have been dragged away or even killed, which she wasn't sure was good or bad in the current situation. Considering the options offered in their supernatural world, Willow felt a knot forming in the pit of her stomach as she prepared herself for the possibility that he may not be coming back.

* * *

Xander was being led by his evil lover down a series of stairs underneath The Bronze and finally along a row of jail cells. _Have these always been here?_ He wondered to himself. Perhaps the original architect had a flash of inspiration after watching 'Frankenstein' one night. His greater worry, though, was about the puppy. Obviously, he wasn't expecting to find a cute little Dalmatian taking up cell space, so the chances were it had to be something far nastier and meaner when the owners were vampires. Perhaps it was some kind of five-headed demon dog that was keeping guard over a portal of some kind.

The last thing he expected to see amongst the dirt and chains was Angel, and not just because he had disappeared to Los Angeles on Graduation Day.

The usually well-built vampire looked much paler and thinner than normal, but there was a certain rush that passed through Xander when the souled vampire cringed as they entered his quarters. Manacles tied his hands together and further chains bound his feet to the wall.

Xander looked on as Willow proceeded to torture him with the excitement of a child let loose in a candy store, not knowing what to think or, indeed, feel. First she lit a match, burning pieces of his skin, throwing them at him from behind the bars. Opening the cell door she marched in and Angel scurried away into the back.

"Go away! Leave me alone!" he said nervously. "Tell The Master I'll-I'll do anything for him."

"No fair," Willow pouted, advancing on the crouching vampire. "Where's the fun in negotiations? Give and take, give and take…I prefer just to lay my offer out," she told him, drawing her arm back quickly and launching her fist into his jaw. "This is more of a hostile takeover though," she smiled.

When Angel yelled out in pain, spun over to the side and lay flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling, she stood over him, a leather boot on either side of his chest, a wicked glint in her eye as she lowered herself to sit on his stomach. She smirked to herself as she rested her hands briefly on his chest, her fingertips grazing the material of the already-ragged shirt, before she violently ripped it open. Then, as if from nowhere, she produced a dangerous-looking pair of pliers that she had collected earlier from the shelf of torture implements that sat on the wall outside of the cell. There was a look of glee on her face as she attached the pliers slowly to one of Angel's exposed nipples, and began to rip.

Xander's first instinct was to pull Willow off of him. Angel had never been his favourite person, but he was always glad to see his brooding face whenever there was trouble. Rushing over, he accidentally trod on Angel's hand, a thrilling sensation running through him as he felt the bones crunch beneath his boot. He watched the trapped vampires face contort into agony as Willow quickly picked up a crucifix with a flowing piece of material from her outfit, and threw it onto Angel's scarred skin, enjoying the scent of burning skin in his nostrils.

It was then that he realised his foot was still on the prisoners hand, and just for a second his first thought was to quickly relieve the pain by moving away. But, this vampire Xander loved the grunts of pain coming from Angel, and he pressed his heel down, hard, into his hand again, grinding it against the already-broken bones. He continued, on and on, until a familiar feeling began in his stomach.

Guilt. Guilt that he was enjoying putting someone through this pain and torture, but in this dimension, he wasn't the same person. No one expected him to be the good and gracious Xander in this world; he could wipe the slate clean and start anew. He was also happy to comply with this image when the memories of Angelus came to mind, when he thought of how many times they had clashed back in his reality and he had come off the loser of the two. He realised that winning Buffy's heart was probably the root of it although he was loath to admit it in this situation.

As Willow carried on with her own brand of torture and maiming, Xander noticed a large silver crucifix lying on the floor next to them and picked it up via an attached chain. _Must be another of Willow's toys,_ he thought as he matched it up to some of Angel's wounds. An idea had formed in his head and it would prove to be his most diabolical yet.

* * *

Willow frantically looked around the cemetery for any sign that Xander might still be alive, but still found nothing. It was like he had just vanished into thin air or had been devoured by something that left no trace of the body, no bones, skin or residue, and, unfortunately, she knew plenty of demons just like that. There **was** residue, though, she noticed, next to the putrid jelly that was once Sassprokasa. A thin layer of slime seemed to be forming some sort of pattern.

Taking a few steps back, Willow realised that it was Xander's outline. She recognised the position as the one he was lying in when she left, and there seemed to be small billows of steam rising from it. The scene reminded her of 'Back to the Future', when the time travelling Delorean had taken off and left a spinning license plate and two flaming tyre tracks in its wake, a film that she now balked at the memory of.

She thought of the first time she saw it, when she was only ten years old, at Xander's house one summer night. They were both curled up on the sofa in his basement watching the movie, sharing a large tub of popcorn and their own theories on time travel. On the ride to school the next morning they both tried to goad Xander's dad into speeding up so they could hopefully get taken back in time. Happy to indulge them, Mr. Harris did just that and ended up with a speeding ticket and $50 fine for his trouble. Years later, they laughed about it, but now it just struck Willow with a lump in her throat. Back then it seemed so naïve to believe in all of that, but nowadays they could come up against that at any time, as well as any number of demons or monsters. Now she had to work out where Xander had vanished to with not even a spinning shoe to suggest he survived.

Bending to examine the slime further, she confirmed that it came from Sassprokasa and took out a small book from her bag that was packed with notes she had made on the demon in case they got into a sticky spot. Reading through it quickly, she remembered that Sassprokasa's bodily fluid contained magical properties that reacted to the thoughts and feelings of whatever it was covering. For the most times it wouldn't work in such a strong way, except on organic life forms such as humans or vampires. Realising the state Xander was in when she left and what must have happened to him, without a second thought Willow began scraping it together and smearing it on her shoes in an effort to replicate the scene, praying it would work on her too.

She couldn't bear the thought of her sweet, innocent Xander lying in some hell dimension being tortured by monsters.

* * *

Holding the crucifix up to the light, Xander took the piece of chewing gum from his mouth that he had been readying since the idea had come to him and fixed it to the axis as firmly as he could without burning his fingers. His task completed, he began to swing the cross tauntingly in front of Angel, a smirk on his face that he was sure he never had back in his usual dimension.

"What happened to you, Angel?" he asked in disgust. "The big man. The big bad. I've read up on you. I know all about you. What you've done. Even some stuff that you don't know about yet," he told him.

"Going to tell my future, are you?" Angel replied with a growl. "Does it involve both of your heads on sticks?"

"Angelus," Xander continued without dropping a beat, "evil villain that he **_was_** got himself a soul – not that it matters, of course. Just made him emotionally weaker, made him a freak among our kind, not better in any way."

"Yeah, I have a soul now and I'm more of a man than you'll ever be," Angel snarled back at him. "I can take the pain. If you had to…if you had a soul, you'd be dust within the hour."

"Bad puppy!" Willow shouted, launching another punch to Angel's face.

"Heads up, Will!" Xander replied with a malicious grin, still swinging the crucifix from its chain.

"That's a big one," Willow replied, her eyes wide with excitement as she moved away from Angel.

"Wait until you see how I use it," Xander said slowly but smoothly. He swung his new toy around with ease, throwing it with sharp precision onto Angel's bare chest. The vampire began to scream louder than he had ever heard before as the gum held it firmly onto his torso.

Willow's eyes lit up. "Ooh, that's a new move," she said. "I like!"

"Bigger really is better," Xander grinned as the smell of burning flesh filled the air.

"Last's longer, too. I could watch this all day. Takes all the fun out it, though," Willow added with a grin, turning around and licking Xander's ear slowly. "My clever baby's making me horny and now my hand's are free to do other things."

Xander wasn't listening, though, as he stood watching Angel writhe in agony, feeling a mixture of delight and sorrow. Angel was never his best friend, but to see him in so much pain was weird and it scared him that he found it so pleasing.

The Willow from his world would be so ashamed of him right now, not to mention what Buffy would think of what he was doing to the person she loved, and the thoughts of them distressed him more than anything did.

Leaving Willow's side, he gave a hefty kick to the crucifix and sent it spinning into the corner of the room, as Angel took his chance for a reprieve and scurried to the back of the cell, away from Xander and Willow, with a look of both relief and fear.

"Hey, I was enjoying the show!" Willow cried with a pout.

"Well, it's…" he began shakily, "as you said, takes all the fun out of it." He turned to look at her fully, his eyes travelling up and down her body. "I wouldn't want you get bored," he told her. "We have the rest of forever. He's not going anywhere." Turning to gesture to his victim, he saw Angel lurch towards him with a sudden burst of strength. Taken aback, Xander found himself pinned against the cage bars as Angel began to attack.

"Ready for a real fight, boy?" Angel growled, punching Xander in the stomach and slamming his face against the bars.

"Bad puppy!" shouted Willow. "Attacking your masters!"

She threw a high kick into his cheek allowing Xander enough time to scurry out of his way. He watched Willow beat Angel back and it occurred to him how bizarre the whole scene was. His timid redheaded friend besting one of the most fearsome vampires of all time. Willow grabbed a small crucifix and buried it into Angel's face.

"Willow, that's enough!" Xander cried out.

"If you don't punish them they'll never learn," she purred. "Don't you wanna piece of this? Bad boy tried to hurt my baby!"

"I mean we have to be back up in a few minutes," Xander replied quickly. "Can't keep the big man waiting."

Willow relented, got up, leaving the unconscious Angel on the ground and moved towards him, taking his cold hand in her even colder one. "We still have a few minutes, though, and torturing always makes me so horny…" she said, leading him away with a bemused expression on his face.

* * *

Willow gazed up at the night sky with all its pretty twinkling stars and thought of Xander. She wondered where he was, what dimension, time zone or even alternate reality might now house his soul. Taking slime from the remains of Sassprokasa and from the imprint left by Xander, she had covered herself from head to foot in an effort to make sure the same mojo that took him away would do the same from her. To further guarantee it, she was lying in the exact same position that he had been. The sickly smell and putrid feel of the slime made her more than a little queasy, but she tried to keep her last meal down long enough for the magic to work. She knew that she had to think very carefully about what she wished for in order to find her friend. If she thought the same things he did - bearing in mind that she wasn't entirely sure what those were due to the fragile state of mind she left him in - then she could end up the in the same place but not necessarily with him. If she concentrated on him too hard then she might actually **_become_** him, perhaps even eradicating his soul completely in the process.

She tried to fuse them all together, reliving both his frustrations and her love for him, trying to concentrate on his soul and mystical energy as a source to hone in on. Practising magic with Giles and pursuing her own interests in Wicca had left her well-prepared for events such as these, and she found it easy to empty her mind completely and devote extreme focus to what she wanted to achieve. She felt calm, at peace with the entire world, as the sea of slime washed over her and did its work. Not even a finger flinched as she prepared for the unknown world she was about to be propelled into.

* * *

As Xander was led along another gothic-looking passageway, a number of thoughts and feelings rattled through his mind. He had enjoyed torturing Angel, and he vaguely remembered similar thoughts running through his head when the vampire had reverted back to his alter ego a few years previously. But that was nothing compared to this. Those thoughts were nothing like the ones he was experiencing now. This was a completely different level of darkness that no one could imagine, couldn't picture for a moment unless they were experiencing it first-hand.

The hunger had started, too. The craving for blood and murder was getting stronger, and while he felt like he couldn't fight it for much longer, what scared him more was not knowing whether or not he wanted to. The only conclusion that he could come to was that his soul must be slowly slipping away from him as he started to become the monster on the inside that he was on the outside. It was, after all, what he had wished for, but he had failed to take into account the consequences of it in his brief moment of madness.

Willow led him into another room, another dark and empty underground place where they were totally alone. She didn't bother to close the door, not that he was entirely sure there was one in the dim lighting, and he got the feeling that this was a regular occurrence for his vampire alter ego and this vampire Willow, but Xander still wasn't quite sure what to expect, despite her earlier words.

When she stopped and turned to him, her face was full of wanting, and there was no mistaking her intentions. She lowered her eyes coquettishly, a parody of his childhood friend, he thought, compared to her soulless nature, and she slowly wrapped her arms around his waist, drawing their bodies closer. She leaned into him, her face nuzzling his neck, and he briefly wondered how it happened, how he had become a vampire. Who turned him? Did she sire him? Or was it the other way around? He knew that it had to have happened one way or another, because sometimes, when he was undead in his nightmares, his first thought was always of her, subconsciously or knowingly. And their intimacy now…it was like they had never known anyone or anything else other than each other.

He felt her chilled lips on the skin at the base of his neck, hard from the lack of blood running through them but familiar, as she placed the lightest of kisses there. He couldn't help the unneeded breath that escaped him. He supposed it was just habit as he let out an almost inaudible moan that seemed to float in the air between them as her lips moved over his neck, her tongue leaving a trail in its wake. Initially, he had felt awkward, but he quickly relented. This may not be **his** Willow, but she was still Willow, after all, and he felt his unfulfilled passions filling his actions as he felt his arms moving around her of their own accord.

Her mouth reached his lips and they both became lost in the moment. So lost in fact that that he didn't bat an eyelid when she started to briefly glow green. The kiss had begun slowly, tantalizing him, taunting him with what he could never have in his world, even if the creature in front of him didn't know it. Her lips captured his and he knew he wasn't going to deny himself this. She coaxed him, opening her mouth over his, encouraging him to do the same. When he complied, he felt her tongue delve into his mouth quickly, fast and experienced and completely overwhelming.

But still, Xander couldn't help but feel that he was kissing a robot. It seemed like something cold and passionless, and he tried not to think about the fact he was technically kissing a corpse, all of those necrophilia jokes he had made about Buffy coming back to slap him in the face.

But then there was a change, a shift that took place, and there was the heat and the passion he remembered that began to seep into the embrace. Her lips became softer and more pliant, more and more fiery, blood seemed to flow through her veins once more and she became more alive, and this was what he lost himself to as he held her tightly.

* * *

The first thing Willow felt as she re-emerged was his kiss. She recognised his smell, his touch and his passion instantly and allowed herself to remain in the moment despite her disorientation.

"Xander!" she whispered excitedly, eventually freeing her lips from his, stepping back and looking into his eyes. "Xander, you're okay! You're alive!"

"So are you…" he replied, pulling her back to him and into another kiss.


	3. Chapter Three

Xander was blissfully happy.

If he were Angel then he would have reached past Angelus by now and into something much darker.

He and Willow had been holding each other tightly for what felt like forever. They had shared the most intense, lingering kiss he had ever experienced, and her head was now nestling comfortably in his arms.

He had been a vampire for less than a day and failed to realise the full range of equipment and strength that it offered, plus the extent to which his body had changed. Vampires were primal creatures and when they hunted, fed or made love, the demon came through. Willow and Xander were now wearing their vampire faces, although they had yet to realise it.

Willow rubbed her head up and down Xander's arm lazily, mouth open and sharp teeth digging deeper and deeper into his skin, blissfully unaware of her demonic state. She sleepily opened her eyes to look at his face, mouth upturned in a smile of contentment that soon turned into a look of horror at his deformed features.

"Aargh!" she screamed, leaping back and out of his arms. "Oh, oh my god! You're a vampire!"

"Yeah, don't remind me," he muttered. "And, hey, not a snack bar, by the way," he told her, rubbing his hand over the deep scratch on his arm. "Well, so are you…aren't you…? I mean, I thought…"

"Umm…yeah, of course…pissshah," she replied nervously. "I'm, like, the biggest bad of them all…" Her hands crept over her clothes and recognised the leather cat suit of her vampire self. If she had now leapt into that dimension then this must be the vampire Xander that she had told herself about.

"Yeah…yeah, of course you are, I'm sorry," he said downheartedly. He was so sure that his Willow had arrived though some miracle, but he figured that must've just been a pipe dream. And the fact that she had started feeding on him couldn't be a good sign. Maybe it was part of some vampire mating ritual or perhaps she suspected that he wasn't who he claimed to be and that he had a soul now. Could she sense something like that? Vamps always seemed to know who Angel was by his scent; it wouldn't be a great leap for the same to happen to him here, in this alternate universe.

"And so are you, aren't you?" she asked, her tone a little uncertain. "I think… we're both the most evil servants of the underworld. Grrr!"

"Oh, yeah," he agreed. "Mad, bad and totally dangerous to know. Anyone who crosses us well they better watch out or they'll…have their…bodies split open and used for…" he trailed off, not really sure where this was going.

"…Cups," she said quickly, finishing his sentence. "Yes, cups. And we'll grind their bones to make our bread, yeah," feeling certain she was getting somewhere. Perhaps she was better at acting than she thought.

A loud bang resounded around the room, diverting their attention and making them both look over to a small grate in the roof over on the left-hand side of the dark little room, leaving their words in mid air, something that they were both grateful for.

Even with the enhanced abilities being a vampire had, Xander hadn't quite figured out how to use the advanced night vision he'd been so jealous of before. In fact, it was actually quite difficult for them to make out what the commotion was all about as so many different types of boot, shoe and sneaker covered their view in quick succession.

"Well, for a window, it's like a 'Payless' in here," noted Xander quietly, pulling Willow into the shadows of the room as what looked like a small army entered the room, using it as a thorough-way to reach the club proper. One face he did recognise was Rupert Giles, leading the charge with a large cross in one hand and a crossbow in the other.

"Giles!" Xander exclaimed in a whisper, surprised to see the middle-aged librarian leading a charge into the Bronze armed to the back teeth with weapons.

"He's slaughtering all our beloved brethren, damn him," Willow said, a note of hope in her voice.

"Yes, he's truly a bad, bad man," replied Xander woodenly with a smile and the same tone of happiness.

He looked down at his arm, a small look of awe in his eyes when he realised the wound was now partially closed, tissue and muscle repairing itself with little pain at all. _Kinda cool,_ he thought and wished he had that ability available to him in his normal life. Soberly, he realised that with no way back, this could be his normal life from now on.

The one thing that was confusing him, though, was Willow. She seemed a little unusual since their kiss. It looked like she was breathing in and out at a faster pace, which was strange for a vampire. Then again, any breathing at all was strange for a vampire. He was certain he had felt something when they kissed, some kind of mystical force at least, unless all those rumours about the earth moving were true.

* * *

Willow was very nervous and she had noticed her breathing was becoming more frequent, not good at all for a vampire. She tried holding it in at regular intervals, but it was no use. Even when she was swimming and had to dive underwater the most she could hold for was a minute. Her cheeks also tended to puff out whenever she did, and Xander had once commented that it made her look like a cute little chipmunk, also not a good thing for such a fearsome creature of the night. Every moment since she had arrived here her heart seemed to pound faster and louder against her chest, providing yet another give-away to her true identity.

Perhaps this wasn't the dimension her Xander was in, after all. There must be hundreds out there, and she figured she must have just latched onto the nearest Xander in the cosmos. She internally reprimanded herself for being so stupid. She couldn't pick Xander the police officer, Xander the 18th century gold prospector or even Xander the vampire slayer… Oh, no, she had to pick big bad vampire Xander. _Good move, Willow,_ she told herself.

* * *

"Guess The Master will be in a pretty sucky mood, if he's not a big old dust bunny by now," Xander said, listening to the sounds of the battle that was raging in the building, bringing Willow back from her mental debate. "Class must be over, too. Boy, I wish this could've happened in school. Y'know, big gang storms into class and dusts the teachers. 'Just leave your homework on the side, Xander. I'll look at it when the wind blows me over there'…" he joked.

"Phew," Willow replied, allowing herself to relax a little. "Yeah, if he were back then we would be in serious doo-dah."

"If he were back?" Xander asked, looking into her eyes.

"Yeah," she said, not thinking. "If he were back we'd all be in…uh oh, he's back, isn't he?" she asked nervously, full of dread. "Or is he? Is it 'doo-dah'? Not an evil enough word for we creatures of…" She trailed off when she caught him looking intensely at her, and suddenly firing out answers and hoping that something would stick didn't seem like such a great idea. Looks like she finally found a way to stop her heart from beating.

"You think the Master's dead, don't you?" Xander said excitedly, his heart took its turn to race out of control, as did his mind as it arrived at a conclusion. "That means you're…"

"No…I'm…I…" she stuttered, preparing to run and looking around for an exit. The last thing she was expecting at that moment was for him to wrap his strong arms around her tighter than ever.

"It's you! It's really you!" he sniffed. "Willow?" he asked, his tone begging, hoping and pleading that she would give a positive answer to all his questions. "From my dimension? The one where Buffy's the slayer, the Master's worm food and all is sweetness and light?"

"Yes, it's me," she replied through the tears that had started to well up in her eyes. "Xander, I've been so worried about you…" she told him, enjoying the feel of his arms around her, both the emotion and his thick leather jacket muffling her voice.

She pulled back, wanting to look at him, look at her Xander because all of a sudden it seemed like she couldn't remember what he looked like. _Not likely,_ she thought to herself, not when the one thing she'll remember until the day she dies is him, his face and how he could make her feel. His arms were still around her, holding her tightly to him, moving down slowly to rest on her hips, something that caused her to smile a little at. His eyes were looking down at her, and she understood that everything she had feared when she'd found him gone…he felt it, too. All of the worry and the tension and fear that had filled her, she saw it in him.

Her arms that had been holding onto his shoulders moved slightly, unwittingly trailing over his chest. In front of her stood the boy she'd known all of her life, so why was it that all of a sudden he seemed to be grown up and different? His eyes were lowered now, almost closed, and she could feel his relief through the tight grip he had on her body. She lifted one of her arms, her hand shaking at the end of it, touching his brown hair, lifting up the few locks from his forehead so she could see him, checking that he was still the same person.

When he brought his eyes to hers, open and understanding, he grinned at her. It was something that was hardly new to her, but this Xander grin was definitely the patented version that she had been seeing since she was four years old, and she suddenly felt an overwhelming surge of affection for him. She tried to fight it, because, hey, wasn't that what she was supposed to be doing? But in this world, she didn't belong to Oz, wasn't some band groupie that Devon found annoying when she corrected his grammar or criticised his taste in women.

When she felt one of his hands move slowly over the small of her back, she knew it was pointless battling herself. Her hand came down to rest on his chest, her fingers lightly tracing tiny circles on the material of his tank top nervously as he lifted one of his hands to her face. He touched her hair briefly, just enough to make her feel like she was going to melt, before he moved it to her cheek. Resting it there, soft and gentle against her skin, she leaned into his palm, closing her eyes and indulging herself in the moment. Soon, he would pull away and it would be awkward, and she'd feel like he was taking a piece of her with him, so she wanted to make the most of his attention while she had it.

But Xander didn't move away. Instead, his face seemed to get larger, like it was being blown up by some imaginary balloon pump, before she realised that…_oh, my god_…he was going to kiss her.

It was soft, tentative, as his lips brushed hers, like he was afraid she'd slap him and tell him to stop being such a pervert. When he was sure that wasn't what was going through her mind – not that there was much room for **anything** to go through her mind – he put his lips to hers again. It was firmer this time as his mouth moved slightly, opening just a hint and capturing her top lip in his gently. When he felt her sigh into his mouth, he took it as a positive sign, and the way she opened her mouth to him completely was unmistakable.

This was different, he felt it in her warmth, in the way her hands were still fidgeting on his chest nervously, and if he hadn't realised it before, this would definitely have been the moment when he knew this was his Willow. She was warm, and soft, and smelled like cinnamon, and he couldn't stop his tongue from entering her mouth because he couldn't remember if she tasted like it, too. He knew it was a poor excuse, but it was one he'd stick to, even if they hauled him into court and made him swear in front of a judge and jury.

Her tongue met his, and he felt like they were melding into one another, a feeling he knew he could easily get used to, and it was something that scared him more than anything else in this little Bizarre-o World. She was responding to him, using tantalisingly slow movements with her tongue as he felt her arms move up to rest on his shoulders first, then around his neck.

He pulled away then because he had to. He didn't really need to breath in a vampires body, but he worried that if he didn't cut it off soon, something would happen that they'd both…he didn't want to use the word 'regret', but he didn't want to take advantage of her in this situation. They stayed in each other's arms for a minute or two, neither of them saying a word.

Xander took her hand as she released him, moving to the wall at the side of the room and sliding down it, his probably expensive leather jacket scraping across the bricks noisily. He didn't much care too much about that, though, because, realistically, his vampire self probably didn't pay for it.

Willow, seeing his movement, joined him on the cold, concrete floor of the cell, the both of them sitting in the shadows against the wall, as Giles and the other continued their assault on the club above them.

"Shouldn't we be out there helping them?" asked Willow, huddling into Xander for comfort and unneeded warmth.

"Which side?" Xander asked wearily, his sudden new life more tiring than he would have expected. "We're vampires, remember? I don't know about you, but I'm not in the bitey mood at the moment, especially for an Oz-burger."

"I meant helping Giles!" Willow stressed.

"The only way we'll be helping Giles is if we stake ourselves before we go out there," Xander told her logically. "He's the enemy, remember? Or at least he'll think we are, and I'm not prepared to do a Butch and Sundance when I've just found the only good thing to happen to me in hours. I doubt our fellow creatures of the night will see it in the noblest of light's either. Y'know, I never understood until now how brave Angel must've been, helping us and all. He must've received a heap of bad vibes from the rest of the Lost Boys out there," he said thoughtfully.

"I guess," she allowed. "Ah, well, I suppooose we could just stay here and smush together," Willow said with a shy smile, raising an eyebrow.

"Sounds like an effective plan, Butch."

"I'd rather be Sundance, much cooler name," she replied. "So, the Master's really alive, then?" she said, almost to herself. "Well, dead…but undead. I mean, back from the dead. I mean…"

"I guess Buffy never arrived here so the Harvest uncorked his bottle four years ago."

"So she never crushed his bones?"

"Nope," Xander said. "He's currently very much the walking ad for 'Night of the Living Dead' and not a nutritious loaf of wholewheatly goodness as would be preferable. Take it from me, I've seen him in the flesh, rotting and maggot filled as it may be."

"Maybe Giles succeeded after all," she said optimistically. "Maybe he's dead…again."

"I don't think so, Will. Giles isn't even our Giles. Who knows how much combat he's actually seen in this dimension? I think it's more likely he'll be the dead one. Who knows? He might even have been…" he felt a chill just uttering the words.

"Giles as a vampire," she said thoughtfully. "That'd be weird."

"I wouldn't have thought it would mean much change to his daily routine," Xander joked. "Just a cup of blood with his biscuit at three o' clock instead of tea."

"How can you joke about it, Xander? This is Giles we're talking about!" she said sitting up and looking him straight in the eye.

"He isn't Giles," Xander said. "At least, not our Giles anyway. This is an alternative reality, remember? One of thousands, millions, out in the big black yonder. It's like a bag of cookies; one plain, another chocolate, another chocolate chip, another sprinkled with M&Ms and so on. Giles is still safe at home," he replied indignantly.

"How can you say that?" she asked worriedly. "He's still Giles. A version of Giles. A man in trouble, so shouldn't we do something?" she looked at him, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. "Have you been like this all the time?" she asked him. "So cold and…soulless? Are you losing your soul, Xander?"

Xander looked back into her eyes, his own carrying a few subtle tears nestling in the corners of them with worry and realisation. "I am, Will," he told her in a quiet, scared voice. "I really think I am. I've been thinking dark things recently…evil things that I never knew my mind could conjure up, let alone consider carrying out." He shuffled around on the floor, the leather of his pants sticking to his legs uncomfortably. "I think I'm even wearing one."

"Now you're scaring me," she said, concerned. "Have you done anything yet?" she asked, feeling an overwhelming worry for his welfare. "Like eaten anybody?" The thought also struck her that the same thing might happen to her if she stayed any longer in the dimension.

"No, I haven't," he said, deciding it wasn't quite a lie on the killing people front. He hadn't killed Angel, but he decided it would be better not to tell her that the other vampire was chained up in a cell not far from where they were sitting and that he had taken great pleasure in causing him some serious pain. He figured that it was Angel, though, and he was just settling old scores anyway, not that that was a great reason. It wouldn't be the same if it were a human being on the receiving end of his fangs…would it? Xander was afraid that it would be and even more so when he thought that he would actually enjoy the process.

"I wonder what human flesh would taste like anyway?" Xander said curiously, opening his mouth before realising.

"Eeew, Xander!" Willow cried in disgust.

"Now some say it tastes like chicken," he said to himself thoughtfully. "Which I could put up with. Cannibals call it 'longpig'. 'Dishin' up a big ole platter of longpig on the table'. So does that mean it tastes like pork?" he asked. "Or even some bizarre combination of the two, like some kind of pig chicken? I suppose drinking blood must get less icky as time goes on, or perhaps its like a gravy to…" he trailed off, seeing her looking at him with a look he couldn't quite figure out on her face. "Will, what's wrong?" he asked. "You're doing that starry thing with your eyes again."

"I think we should just get out of here with mucho quickness," she told him seriously, for the first time in her life feeling afraid of him as she tried to move away. "I don't like what's happening to you!"

"No," he said forcefully, grabbing her and pulling her back to him. "We're staying right here!"

"Oww!" she cried, feeling his fingers digging into her hips tightly. "Hurting now!"

"Will, think about it," he said gently. "Would it be so bad if we were to stay here permanently?" he asked with heavy sincerity, looking straight into her eyes. "We have the whole dimension to ourselves and we can start anew. Immortality, no more fighting demons – unless they get in our way, of course – no more having to put our lives on the line saving the world every two minutes. We don't even have to worry about finding jobs or what kind of future we're gonna have. We can be together forever!" he smiled a devilish grin.

"I see," she said, raising her eyebrows with a smirk. "'Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It's fun to be a vampire', huh, Xander?" she asked.

"Are you mocking me?" he replied, slightly hurt.

"Xander, I don't want to stay here," Willow said truthfully. "I want to get back home and see all our friends again, get back to normal. This dimension, this life…its all darkness and evil. I want to live in the sunlight again. It's the balance between light and dark that keeps me fighting this fight. If I lost the light then…I'm really scared to think what might happen."

Xander still clung to her, his head hung in guilt and shame. "I'm sorry, Will…" he said honestly. "I-I don't know what's happening to me. I just feel so cold inside, y'know? It's so different, and I'm not sure what to think anymore. Kinda like one drinking of my dad's special 'orange juices' but without the crushing headache the morning after. I'm so confused but if I try to follow my heart, my gut, it leads me to a weirder place than normal," he tried to explain.

With his heartfelt words and forlorn expression, Willow felt the fear disappear from her, at least the fear she'd had of him. She carefully wrapped her arms around him, hugging him to her, glad that even if she was in some weird vampire dimension, at least he was there with her. Willow was just glad to find him alive…well, as alive as he could be, despite the fact that she had now put herself in the same situation. At least they could now find an escape together.

In Willow's embrace, Xander felt that old familiarity and safe warmth surround him, but he was still confused. Xander was confused about his feelings, both for her and their predicament, but he was more relieved than he could ever express that she came looking for him before he truly lost his soul for good.

"Will?" Xander asked after a minute, pulling away from her, but finding her still all-too-close.

"Yes?" she asked him, looking into his eyes.

"We could be together here," he said softly, dark intensity in his eyes that made her more than aware that he was serious. "No ties…no one else…no Buffy, Oz or Anya…just us. It's worth the darkness, isn't it? I mean after some time had passed we wouldn't feel it anyway."

Willow felt a familiar flip of her stomach with his proximity, and there was the temptation to agree because she wanted it so much, but there was a large part of her that thought giving in to this dimension would be too cowardly. She leaned in to him, her eyes wide with sincerity. "There's no one else I'd rather spend the rest of eternity with, but…" she trailed off, looking up. "Hey, the booms have stopped."

"Must be safe to leave," he said quietly. "Shall we go?" he asked. "I could do with an unneeded breath of fresh, musty air."

"Yeah, let's go," she replied in a similar tone. "Really quickly."

"Hey, Will?" Xander asked as they left the cell. "Since now you're a vamp too, do you…?"

"Is it the bloodlust?" she asked, eyes wide and a smile with relief as she felt like she could barely control the words coming out of her mouth, the weird feeling that had been bothering her since she'd arrived finally solved. "The feeling that you wanna rip your teeth into a fresh neck every minute?"

"No…" he said slowly, "…and might I add, please walk five paces in front of me at all times… No, I mean this weird rash right above my…"

"Again with the eeeww!" she said, cringing as she turned and walked out.

"What?" he asked, following her out with a look of confusion on his face.

* * *

Willow could scarcely believe her eyes as she walked through the battered halls of The Bronze. The club was exactly like the one back home, even down to the hole she knocked out of a table once with a microscope she had brought in to continue some extra credit work while keeping the promise she had made to her mom about having an hour's relaxation time per night.

This Bronze was creepier, though. More vampire-fied, with cages and victims and bloodstains and other stuff she really didn't want to think about. Giles' onslaught hadn't done as well as they had been led to believe by all the bangs and shouting, the human bodies outnumbered the tiny piles of dust lying on the floor like little anthills that reminded her of when she and Xander had worked in her neighbours yard when they were younger.

"So what do you think of the redecoration job?" Xander asked, looking around. "Looks like the Crypt Keeper really went nuts with the home furnishings."

She followed his eyeline, taking in the new destruction and the old. "It's so dark and…hey!" she said suddenly, hearing something she likened to that of an engine, and seeing a large vampire about to cut into a victim that was tied up on a pool table with a small chainsaw.

"Willow, no!" hissed Xander as he watched her run over, fearing that she would give her humanity away. The more they convinced the vampires in this world that they really were on their side, the more chance they would have of escape. He quickly ran over to where they were standing across the club as Willow seemed to be discussing something with the vampire that he couldn't quite make out yet.

"…So you see, Harley," Willow explained to the pale, dark-haired vampire who seemed to think that denim was a serious lifestyle choice, "…if you use the smaller Brinks 2500 chainsaw, you can cut just as efficiently but the blood won't spurt everywhere so much."

"But I likes blood," he replied in a monotonous voice with a slight Kentucky accent. He looked like a trucker, or someone that had undertaken a lot of manual work, as well as a lot of alcohol, in his previous life.

"Yeah," Willow said, sounding understanding and patient. "So why not keep it all in your victim instead of spaying the walls?"

"Oh, I git ya now," the redneck said, nodding thoughtfully. "Very clever."

"Willow, whatcha doing?" Xander asked, slightly out of breath and trying to not to sound as freaked out as he felt.

"She givin' me advice on cuttin' up this sonofabitch that killed ma Lullabelle," Harley told him, jutting out his chest and referring to the young man currently quaking with fear as several pool balls surrounded his head. The balls knocked against the wincing young man's head lightly, making the victim tense his body, no matter how hard the touch seemed to be. Xander recognised him as one of the faces from the White-hats attack.

"Well, that's the missus," Xander said quickly and nervously. "She'll help anyone…with their torture techniques. Carry on, and please don't hesitate to call if you need our advice again. We're on 555-MAIM. Bye!" He grabbed Willow's hand, ushering her away from Harley and the victim he recognised as one of the faces from the White Hat attack earlier.

Once out of earshot, Xander pulled Willow around quickly, looking at her seriously and expectantly. "Okay, what's with the Torture 101?" he asked sternly.

"I don't know," she told him, her eyes wide with fear. "I don't know what I was thinking. It's like I was back in school again and I saw someone calculating a math problem wrong in their homework, or-or-or had a comma out of place. I just had to correct it," she stuttered.

He smiled, despite the situation. "That's one of the things I love most about you. God knows, I would still be in 9th grade without it," he told her. "But what's with the in-depth knowledge of chainsaws? "

"Just came from nowhere," she said, distressed. "Does being a nerd carry on into the afterlife?"

"Who knows?" he said with a shrug and a smile that he hoped was reassuring. "I know I've never seen any creatures of the night hitting the calculus books before they go on a hunt."

"I think I know what you meant now about the darkness, the evil," she told him seriously. "I mean, I saw that poor man lying on that table and all I could think was 'y'know, those ropes just aren't tight enough and that saw isn't as sharp as it could be'," she shook her head dismally. "I'm scared, Xander."

"Me too, sweetie," he replied, pulling her closer and drawing his coat around her shoulders. He held her there, eventually leaning down and placing a soft, brief kiss on her cheek. She looked up at him and smiled warmly at him, before placing her head back in the crook of his neck. He rubbed her back where his arms held her, trying to offer comfort, but it was an action that didn't seem to do anything for their collective spirits.

* * *

"Okay, so where now?" Xander asked, a strong blast of cold night air hitting them in the face as they ventured onto the streets of Sunnydale to see if they could find a solution their problem. "I don't see any giant swirling vortex thing for us to step back into, or a wooden sign labelled 'Home' in big black letters."

"All we have to do is find some more of that slime and wish ourselves back home," Willow replied logically as they walked.

"So what you're saying is, we have to find Slimer again?" he asked.

"Not necessarily," she told him. "All we need is some of the residue. There should be enough juice in it to send us back."

"How did we end up here, though?" he asked, wondering. "I mean, what exactly does this stuff do?"

"Before we fought Sassprokasa I did a little reading," she explained. "Its bodily fluids have empathic properties that react to the thoughts and feelings of any organic life form it touches. The demon can also slide between dimensions at will at certain times of year, allowing itself to be renewed where any depleted powers will be returned, and be stronger, in another dimension," she said, her response almost verbatim from the textbook she had been reading.

"All of which adds up to much scariness," he said, almost to himself. "So what did we do to set it off?" he asked immediately.

"I just followed you, tried to get a trace on your specific soul," she told him with that 'don't-look-at-me-I-was-just-copying-what-you-did' look she'd had since they were six years old. "What were you thinking of?"

"Usual stuff," he said with a shrug. "Wishing I was Spiderman and not Peter Parker."

"So why aren't we swinging through the streets of New York trying to dodge the Green Goblin instead of walking the undead walk in Vampydale?" Willow asked, even though she figured she more or less knew the answer. Xander had always been jealous of Angel, of his powers and his attraction to Buffy.

"I might have sorta wished I were a vampire," he admitted slowly. "You know, all that power and stuff…"

"Just like Angel?" she asked.

"He doesn't come into this, he's nothing to do with us anymore," Xander snapped bitterly. "I just wish I was something more than Xander the Vampire Slayer Cheerleader."

"Oh, Xander, you could never be…" she started.

"I am," he interrupted. "Everyone else has a special power. I'm nothing. Hand me the pom-poms, mini skirt and revealing top that says 'Go Team Buffy!' I'm ready for them!" he grumbled.

"Well, if that's your decision, sign me up for one of those uniforms and we'll stand side by side together and sing rousing songs," she smiled, looking up at him.

"You can't," he told her, even though a part of him was secretly pleased that she'd still do that for him, still stand up for him when it came down to it. "What about your magic?"

"Nah, I'll just fire off a couple blasts while your back is turned," she said with a grin. "You'll never know."

Xander threw his arm around her shoulders, grinning back and knowing that he was beaten. "So," he said. "We just have to figure out where the demon would head in this dimension?" he asked.

"We might not have to," she told him thoughtfully. "There could be a chance there's some residue left where we came in, like entry burns or something. I checked the cell and couldn't find any there, but we could try the place where you came in?"

"The Apollo Xander landing site?" he said, leading her down the side of the club and around the corner. "Sure, we could go take a looksee."

A scream rang out in the night air that stopped them both in their tracks.

"Somebody screamed," Willow said, looking up at him.

"I know, Will," he told her. "I've heard enough of them by now."

They both turned to see Nancy closing in on a trapped, scared young boy in an alley not too far away from the Bronze. He was backed into an alcove with no way of escape, moving slowly and bumping into some nearby trash cans that clattered loudly in the near-empty street. Nancy snarled at the boy, ready to move in for the kill.

"There's our damsel in distress," Xander said immediately.

"That's Nancy?" Willow asked.

"Yeah, I saw her in the club earlier," he said. "Same thing happened to her. One quick oozing and a wish later and she was here, met a local vamp and got turned," he diplomatically left out the part where his vampire self had been the one to turn her, but he figured that was a good sign. If he felt guilty, it meant that he was feeling emotions again, which also meant that perhaps he could keep his soul tied down a bit longer. Mentally he tried piling on more guilt to stave off its departure.

"Oh, wow," Willow said quietly. "Mega bad luck. So, what now?"

"What do you feel?" he asked sincerely.

"That we should help that guy?" she said uncertainly. "I think."

"Me, too," Xander told her. "Let's go," He said determinedly, marching towards the alley, intent on confronting the vampire. It was an action they had repeated many times before but never with this much trepidation.

"Nancy!" Xander called out, just as she was getting to lunge for her prey.

"Hey, my syphonator," Nancy said as she turned to look at him, smiling coyly in her game face. "Want some food?"

"Nancy?" Willow asked, trying to make out the face beneath the ridges and fangs. "Is that you?"

"Oh, hey, Willow," she replied, suddenly remembering the events that had taken place in the Bronze earlier and backing away slowly. "I was just offering your guy a snack. You want some too?"

"Yeah," Xander said. "Yeah, pass it over here." Willow fixed him with a worried stare, but he tried to reassure her with a glance that told her he had a plan.

Nancy grabbed the boy by his arm and flung him in Xander's direction and waited for some kind of approval from her peers as her face shifted into its human state. "Strange, y'know, what being a vampire does to you," she said. "When I was human I wouldn't even eat from a fast food restaurant-there's, like, so much fat its unbelievable. I mean, what are they doing, trying to make us all look like Elvis: the later years? Because I so think that's their plan. And I never ate anything past the use-by date – even if it was like a day before it would be, like, gross – bin, please. Yet here I am, about to eat next to several trash cans, surrounded by all these icky flies, and I don't give it a second thought and…hey, he's getting away!" Nancy yelled suddenly, her face shifting back into its true form as she saw Willow ushering the boy who was going to be her meal down the street, before she made a move to chase after him.

"Stay there!" Willow yelled, seeing the weapons that were still scattered on the ground from the White Hats failed attack on the club. She quickly grabbed a nearby stake from the floor, plunging through Nancy's heart without hesitation as the other vampire sprung forward in pursuit of her prey.

This was no ordinary dusting, though, they knew that straight away. The minute the stake hit Nancy's heart, green slime began to leak out of her body and engulf it. She screamed out in agony, as was the norm with vampires when they were dispatched, but when her unearthly body crumbled away into dust a green outline, a perfect silhouette of Nancy Esposito, remained hovering in the air. It wavered in the wind for a minute, bubbling gently, before Xander moved towards it with his hand held out.

"What do you think, Will? He asked tentatively, a note of hope in his voice. "Could this be our portal?"

"I'm-I'm not sure," she told him, watching as he got closer to the hovering liquid. "Xander, be careful!" she warned.

The silhouette bubbled more violently and grew more ferocious by the minute. Sudden bolts of pure light shot out from all directions and obliterated the outline. The force of the blast, not exactly fatal but not without power, propelled Willow and Xander backward into one of the garbage cans.

Xander turned to Willow, her hair blown in all directions from the blast and her eyes wide with surprise, a real smile on his face as they lay in the garbage together. "I think we just found our way home!"


	4. Chapter Four

Willow and Xander slumped together against the large, tin trashcans a few metres away from The Bronze trying to work out what had just happened. Willow had staked Nancy, the girl they had tried to save from Sassprokasa who had been turned into a vampire when she came into this new dimension they currently inhabited, but she had just exploded in a flash of green light and sent the pair sailing through the air into the garbage.

"This is our way home, Will, it has to be," Xander said excitedly as he stood up, brushing the traces of garbage from his leather ensemble. "Did you see what just happened? Icky green slime like liquid kryptonite, just like the gloop that brought us here!"

"I don't know," Willow said, her voice full of doubt as the sensible side of her ruled over the excitement she felt inside that they could have just found the way back to their own world. "What if vampires die like that in this dimension?"

"Vampires die the same anywhere, don't they?" he asked. "I mean, it's not as if you slay one in Britain and it explodes in a mass of tea."

"Maybe not," she conceded. "But…"

"…I mean, what about Eskimo's?" he continued. "Do they morph into small snowmen on dusting?"

"That'd be so cute!" she exclaimed with a grin, looking up at him. "Ooh, I wonder if the fangs would look like mini carrots…" she trailed off, realising going off on a tangent and getting carried away with Xander wasn't going to help. "But that's not the point…" she said, getting back to business. "This is a different dimension," she pointed out. "Vampires may have a different genetic make-up, or they could have been altered in some way when they were first created here. Anything is possible here."

"So what if we dust another one?" he asked hopefully. "Just an ordinary vampire?"

"Who knows how many people have ended up here," she said thoughtfully. "But, technically, yeah, I guess so."

"And we still have the re-entry ooze option as well, don't we?" Xander asked, taking her hand and helping his friend back up onto her feet and brushing some pieces of trash off her clothes, his hand lingering on her body longer than it should.

"Thanks…" Willow said, suddenly finding the power of speech way too difficult with the tingles that went through her body with each tender hand he laid upon her.

"No…uh, problem…" he replied slowly, his eyes travelling from her body up to her face, his eyes fixing on hers again. "There you are…nice, clean and…still dominatrixy," his eyes widened in horror, and he covered his mouth with his hand. "Did I just say that out loud? Oh, God, I'm an idiot!"

Willow giggled, looking back into his eyes, knowing where this could be going if one of them didn't break the tension. "Xander, we can't do this," she whispered.

"Sure we can," he told her, suddenly finding his voice full of emotion, grasping her slender arms with his strong grip. "In this dimension…in these bodies… We're free."

"Xander, I…" she started.

"Miss Willow?" a voice came, and the large frame of Harley stood in front of them, casting a shadow and blocking out the front lights from the club, leaving them in the darkness of the alley. He was still brandishing a chainsaw, the blade of which seemed slightly mangled, and they really didn't want to think about why.

"Harley?" Willow said, glad of the interruption that saved her from what was rapidly becoming an uncomfortable conversation, leaving Xander to turn and skulk away behind the trashcans. "What's up?" she asked the vampire.

"I got me a problem," Harley mumbled in his usual southern drawl. "This 'ere chainsaw ain't cuttin' through the bone so well."

"Oh, I see," she said politely, taking the chainsaw from him and looking carefully, examining it for anything familiar. "Well, perhaps if you just turn this…"

"Hey, fat boy!" Xander interrupted with a yell. "Think fast!" he shouted, seemingly coming out of nowhere and plunging another stake he had found through Harley's ample body.

"Think it might be the yella…urfff—" Were Harley's last words as he exploded into dust. Just like any other vampire.

Seeing what he had done, Xander leapt back in fright, letting the stake fall to the ground with a noise that seemed unnaturally loud in the alley. He cupped his hands around his mouth in shock. "Did I do that?" he asked Willow with frantic eyes. "Was that me?" he stuttered. "It couldn't have been!"

"Xander!" Willow exclaimed, dropping the chainsaw in the trash. "Why?"

"I don't know," he said quickly, looking between her and the pile of dust on the ground. "It just came from nowhere. I called him 'fat boy'. 'Hey, fat boy,' I said-that was me, I said it. He could've creamed me, but…"

"You creamed him first!" Willow said excitedly and proudly. "And-and he died like any other vamp. This means that you were right!" she told him, bending to examine the particles that had been Harley. "It could be our ticket home!"

"Wow," he said to himself. "Winning a fight and being right all in one day," he couldn't help smiling. "And dad said neither would ever happen…" he frowned suddenly. "And they still haven't in his dimension, damnit! Why am I always in an alternative reality when I do good stuff?"

"I think we should still check around the corner," Willow replied, standing from her crouched position. "Just in case."

"Yeah, I guess," he allowed. "Let's go."

* * *

They were silent as the left the alley and walked past the building they knew as the Bronze. No words were exchanged, but they knew they were both thinking the same things. They pondered the advantages and pitfalls of staying as vampires in the new dimension.

The same issues came up in each of their minds. They knew that staying here would totally wreck the future they were destined to live back home, but staying here meant that they could carve a new one, a different one. A future that meant they could do anything without fear of repercussions and never having to worry about money. Saving the world and putting themselves in danger would never again be an option. They could live for themselves, and for each other, something they hadn't been able to do for a long time.

Xander knew that he would enjoy the power he had been longing for, but then the thought struck him that staying here meant that he would be removing himself from the situation he wanted it for in the first place. He wanted the power to help Buffy, to be an integral part of the group like Willow was with her magical abilities or Giles with his research. If he stayed here, that power wouldn't be used for good, it would be evil.

There would be no more sunny days, lying on the beach with Willow and Buffy, eating picnic lunches Joyce had made and making fun of the sun worshippers. There would be no more soul, either. Eventually, they would both become the evil, soulless creatures whose bodies they currently inhabited, and neither of them would have chosen that lifestyle- or **un**-lifestyle. But, then, soon enough they probably wouldn't even care. They wouldn't have the conscience to even consider what they had given up.

The one advantage that they kept coming back to, though, was that they would be together finally in this world. No complication, no other halves, no guilt… But was it worth stripping away every piece of their lives, everything that they knew, for?

"So why do you think Nancy went all green when she died?" Xander asked eventually. "You think that was her being sent back home?"

"Okay, here's what I think happened," Willow said, going into full science teacher mode. "When the gloopy stuff takes effect, our physical bodies shift dimensions. Like, earlier tonight when I came back to the cemetery, there was nothing left of you physically, just a smoky outline."

"Cool," Xander said with a smile. "Just like the Delorean."

"Yeah," she said, not informing him that the same thought had passed through her mind at the time. "So, when Nancy died in this reality, the body no longer had a counterpart to exist in, so my guess is she was whisked back home or…" Willow continued.

"Don't like the 'or'," he told her with a grimace. "Definitely not a fan of the 'or', especially when it comes after the good part."

"…Or…" she said, "It could have obliterated her completely from existence. Maybe even sent her onto the next dimension."

"So it's not a way out and we're back where we started?" he asked, obviously annoyed.

"No," she shook her head. "No, at least we know more about it," she told him. "More knowledge is always good. Isn't it?"

"It's no good knowing how a clock works if it's going to destroy you once it's ticked its first tock!" he snapped. "Hey," he said, suddenly looking thoughtful. "So what happened to the Nancy in this dimension then when ours first landed? Do you think she's back in Sunnydale and the vamps have replaced us?"

"No idea," she said with a shrug. "And no Spanish Inquisition, thank you very much. I'm only trying to guess what might have happened," she told him indignantly. "I don't think the vampires souls or essences, I suppose, have arrived home. I think they've either been displaced, y'know, moved onto another plane like a sorta limbo, or they've moved onto the next dimension, inhabiting the next Willow and Xander. If that makes sense."

"Yeah, I think it does," he replied. "Not to a normal person, but with us? Yeah, I guess it would work. So Vamp Xander could be in Traffic Cop Xander? Nice."

"I suppose," Willow said. "There are so many infinite dimensions out there. It's like a big domino set, or-or eggs in eggcups. It's like you take an egg out of a cup and put it into the next one and remove the egg from that and do the same and so on. Eventually, I suppose two replacements would land in Sunnydale, but that could take months, even years," she explained.

"Hey, I listened to all of that and didn't feel hungry once. Yay, for vampire metabolism," he said with a smile, coming to a stop in front of a familiar, tall wall. "This is it," he told her, looking it up and down. "This is where our story started."

Willow knelt, running her fingers across the brick, examining the wall and the surrounding sidewalk for fragments of slime or any kind of mark that Xander might have left when he arrived. Some scorch marks adorned the sidewalk, but other than that, there seemed very little evidence that he had even been there at all, and certainly nothing that would help them get back. Just a few minutes earlier, slight rain had started to come down which was now turning into a major storm by Sunnydale standards, making water run through the streets like mini-rivers, washing the roads and taking any content down the storm drains.

"Anything yet?" Xander asked.

"Nope," she replied. "The cupboard's bare. Not a sign of anything distinctly oozy. Looks like the rain would've taken it all away by now anyway."

Standing again, Willow gasped a little. The cat suit she was wearing was so binding, especially around her waist, but then she figured that vampires didn't need to draw breath, so it was probably designed to be sexy more than functional. Xander had started to notice, too. His eyes kept darting in different directions whenever he attempted to look at her, and there was a part of her that was enjoying that response in him after all the years he'd spent thinking of her as his guy friend who knew about girl stuff.

She wished she could stay in the dimension with him and enjoy having no responsibilities, to just be with him with no thoughts of consequences. But then she started thinking of Oz, of her friends, and her new college life and having to give them all up. Willow was sure she'd miss Oz. Well, for as long as it took for her to become her doppelganger completely, anyway. She'd miss the way he smiled at her, and the way they were just the right height for each other, and that her head fitted perfectly on his shoulder when they slept. She'd miss the way, when he sang on stage with the band, it was like he was singing to her, like she was the only person in the room with him.

Then there was college. She loved the fact that everybody was there to learn, and by choice. They hadn't been forced into attending by some government rule that said that schools were required to educate every minor under the legal age of consent, or by parents who claimed it was better for their child to get an education so they could get a better job when they were older.

Ever since she could remember, Willow couldn't wait to grow up and explore the world and the depths of her knowledge, to learn thousands of new things a day. Xander never had shared her thirst for knowledge, but perhaps that was why he was more prepared to give up everything. If his car hadn't broken down in Oxnard, then he would probably still be travelling the country. Maybe he'd even be in another country by now, doing nothing except any work he needed to pay his way. His friends were the only things important enough to him to go back for when he had no job or responsibilities that tied him to Sunnydale. His family were certainly the last people on his mind, especially after they'd moved him into the basement without his knowledge, and Willow could hardly blame him for that. He had freedom here that he hadn't known in his own world, and that was a powerful thing. She considered the fact that she was his best friend, so, barring Giles, Buffy, Oz and some of the others, he pretty much had his whole life in this warped dimension. In his case, being a vampire probably didn't seem all that different from being human. It just meant getting out of bed earlier.

Willow wasn't prepared to give up everything just yet, just when it was all beginning for her. They both were at different ends of the spectrum now, not like in High School when everybody had the same classes to go to and the same homework to do. Now she had moved onwards and his life had just stalled, and she was sorry for that, because he deserved so much more. Freedom from the pressures of getting on with his life and making something of himself must be a pretty coveted prize to someone who was scared to death of failing, and that was the one thing that seemed to have landed in his lap here.

"So I guess this means we're only left with one option, huh?" Xander asked sombrely, shaking her from her thoughts.

"Guess so," she said with a nervous smile.

"What do you think our chances are?" he asked.

"Fifty fifty," she relied. "Either we're whisked back to Sunnydale or…"

"There's that 'or' again," he said miserably. "I'm well aware of the significance of the 'or'. What the 'or' means is that we're wiped from existence all together. I still can't believe that after everything we've been through, every big scary thing we've faced, we bow out like this." He looked at her sadly. "It's weird, Will, but I still keep thinking a portal's going to open up any minute, just over by the wall or in the street and Buffy's going step out and shout 'jump in, we're taking you home'. But I guess it doesn't look like the cavalry's going to come anytime soon."

"We could find the demon again," Willow offered, "but we don't know if it even exists in this dimension," she told him. "We could wait for years for another to re-appear."

Xander shook his head, the decision more or less made. "There's probably some stakes still lying around outside The Bronze," he said quickly, starting back to where they had come from, his pace quick and determined.

"Does…this mean you wanna come back home?" she asked hopefully, almost running to catch up with him in the dark street with concern in her eyes. "I thought you liked it here."

He turned to look at her with dark eyes. "I could definitely get to like living in this world," he told her. "I really could…but…I don't know. 'Vampire' was never really a career option I was keen to take up before this. And now I've experienced what it could be like, perhaps I'd like the opportunity to choose once again." His eyes met hers then, gazing at her with trepidation. "Are you sure you wouldn't stay if I asked?"

"Xander, I'd do nearly anything for you," she told him honestly, the rain beating down on them, soaking them through. "But I can't just throw away what I have back home."

He smiled sadly, lowering his eyes away from hers so she couldn't see what they held. "There was a time when you would do absolutely anything for me."

Her cheeks reddened, a blush creeping up from her neck as her head lowered, her hands fidgeting nervously. "Well…" she started.

"When I broke my arm," he said coyly, a reminiscent smile on his face as they arrived back outside of the Bronze, stopping in front of the garbage cans and the pile of Harley the wind was about to carry away. "You carried my bag all the way to school from my house, a full fifteen blocks away."

"Times have changed, and this isn't just a book bag we're talking about here. It's my life," she said, her voice rising seemingly of its own accord, as she grew more frustrated. "I have too much to lose now," she told him angrily. "Can't you see I'm entering a new chapter in my life? I want to live it, and I want to enjoy it. I thought you'd understand!"

"I do," he told her. "But you don't seem to get that it's a scary time for me too…" his voice lowered, his eyes lowering. "But it's one that I want to see through with you."

Willow wondered why, after all the times he'd broken her heart in the past, Xander Harris could still pull her out of a bad mood quicker than anyone else she had ever met. All it took was a look, a smile, or a few words that made her feel like she'd melt, and she was thawed. "You sure?" she asked with a smile, the arm that was next to his nudging lightly. "You wouldn't rather wait until sexy vamp Willow reappears?" Her smile faltered as she grew serious. "Because she can give you something that I don't think I ever can."

"She's not you," he said, shaking his head. "Well, she **is** you, obviously. I mean, the face is a dead give-away, which is kinda ironic when you think about it with her being dead and all…" he trailed off, his eyes meeting hers again. "But she's not the one that I want," he told her passionately. "I need laughy, smiley Willow. The one who knows the table of elements by heart, and not the entire back catalogue of 'Chainsaw Digest'."

His eyes flickered around their surroundings, eventually settling on a pile of stakes that had been dropped at the entrance of the club, almost calling to him in the night air. "If this doesn't work," he told her, raising a hand to rest on her cheek, wet from the rain and cold from the wind. "If we do just end up being some bizarre kind of become space dust…I'd rather be safely floating in the atmosphere with your flecks by my side than risk never seeing you again."

"Oh, Xander…" she said quietly in a trembling voice, her eyes shining with tears that were barely visible in the rain the poured down at them, her hand coming to his where it lay on her cheek.

Willow was sure that given the option, Xander would have chosen to remain in this dimension without her, even thought the thought scared her more than she'd ever admit. There was a certain attraction in having no responsibilities, plus he'd have the full attention of her Mistress of Pain counterpart here. Although she wasn't willing to give up everything she had to stay here, there was still that part of her that was in love with him, always would be, whether she liked it or not, and she hated the fact that he felt like there was nothing to go back to.

Of course, her vampire self was probably a bigger attraction to him, and she couldn't blame him for getting a little hot under the collar for her. When she had met her supernatural double, her initial impression was that the vampire was everything she wasn't. Strong, confident, sexy…plus, she had managed to hook Xander within a day, something that had taken her normal geeky self more than a few years to achieve. Back then, she been jealous of what the doppelganger had achieved, and proud at the same time, so much so that she wasn't quite sure which emotion was stronger. She was pretty sure it was the jealousy. She had reminded herself at the time though that she was only jealous of herself and what she could be if she respected herself a little more.

"Of course," he said with a grin, pulling away and breaking the intimate moment. "If that leather outfit takes a trip back through time and space with us, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world."

"Hey!" she admonished, tapping his arm playfully, the smile she wore belying her seriousness. She was caught off guard when she looked at his face, though. It still held a smile, a smile that seemed like it was for her only, but his eyes were sad. Instead of looking away when her eyes met his – a habit he sometimes had, like he thought that his eyes would give away his inner most secrets – he simply returned it with eyes that had always been like pools of hot chocolate, something she single-handedly blamed for the sugar depravation that she was sure was making her knees go weak and her mind go blank. That was the only answer she could come up with for it – the only thing she was willing to consider, anyway.

"The wet look suits you," Xander said slowly, his eyes refusing to budge from hers, afraid that if he couldn't see her she'd disappear.

"You too," she returned, bringing a hand to his chest and letting her fingers slowly trail across the soaked material of his vest, the surprisingly hard chest underneath sending shivers down her spine that were definitely not because of the cold weather. "I'll do you a deal," she told him mischievously, "If I bring the suit back with me, you bring your Speedos out of the drawer."

"We'll look a pretty odd couple walking down the street," he said with a grin. "But okay."

"You mean you think we'll walk down the street together again?" she asked hopefully.

"If you think we will," he told her, "then I'll be glad when that first piece of gum sticks to my shoe."

His eyes returned to the pile of fatal wooden sticks and, with another look at Willow, started for them. It was only a few quick strides, and there they were, sitting at his feet, each of them begging to be used. He knelt and sifted through them, deciding that not just ANY stake was going to be put through him or his best friend, eventually settling for two that looked like they had been whittled precisely in a nice mahogany wood, figuring that sharper had to be better when it came to staking yourself.

He held them both upright as he crossed the alley back to where Willow was waiting, the tips pointing towards the sky, making him look to the casual observer like he'd never held one before, even though that couldn't have been further from the truth. The stake had become a familiar weapon to both of them during their time, but using it on themselves had never been an option before, even if it was something Xander had nightmares about ever since he'd had to stake Jesse.

Watching him hold the weapons of choice like a novice, Willow thought Xander had an air of innocence about him, something she hadn't seen since Buffy had come into their lives. She realised she missed that about him. She loved who he was becoming, but the cynicism and critical nature he had now made her miss naïve, Snoopy-dancing Xander.

"Guess this is it, then," Xander said morbidly, looking down at the stakes like they were foreign objects, inwardly pleading for her to take them and do what he felt so afraid to. He didn't want the responsibility of ending his own life, and he couldn't bear the thought of ending hers.

"No," she said thoughtfully, her eyes lighting up, a sure sign that something was formulating in her head. "I've got an idea! We could decapitate ourselves," she told him brightly. With his glare on her, she shrunk away, the smile turning into a frown. "Well, I didn't say it was a good one," she said defensively. "Okay, we could wait for the sun to come up," she suggested. "You know, that's a good idea. Let's wait for the sun to come up. It'll be all bright and orangey. Kinda romantic."

"Yeah, but you won't be able to enjoy it, Will," he pointed out gently. "You'll be the Human Torch, remember?" he said. "Anyway, I prefer it this way. When I go – well, for real - I'd rather be buried than cremated. Suppose I just don't like the thought of being still alive when the fires are licking at my footsies."

"It's a no win situation," she said miserably. "Either that or buried alive."

"I'd choose buried alive," he informed her. "There's more chance that I could claw my way out, y'know? Or maybe use some kind of sharpened cufflinks," he grinned, lifting his arms and waving his wrists at her.

The grin quickly faltered when he saw the tears welling in her eyes, something not easily distinguishable in the current weather they were experiencing. But he knew. He closed the short distance between them, wrapping his arms around her tightly and feeling her respond, their familiarity something that nothing could erase from memory.

"I keep telling myself it's not real," she sniffed. "That we aren't going to really end up…" she looked up at him sadly. "…That we'll come out the other side…"

"Hey, I'm sorry, okay?" he told her. "I'll quit joking around."

"Is that even possible?" she asked, a ghost of a smile on her face and a playful glint in her eyes.

He grinned back, dropping the stakes on the ground with a loud clatter. "Let's just get this over with, okay?" he whispered. "We'll just go with the sunlight idea. You know, walk hand in hand into the dawn."

"That's so romantic," she said, sniffing back the tears that threatened to keep on falling. "Well, you know, it would be if we weren't about to burst into flames, I mean. Sort of ruins the moment." She wiped at her eyes, sighing loudly as he released her, not completely, but enough for her to be able to look at him fully. "It seemed a lot less…well…messy for Romeo and Juliet."

"Didn't they poison each other?" he asked, confused. "You know, that would've been a good movie if it hadn't been in some kind of made up language."

"It wasn't a made up language, Xander," she told him. "That's Olde Worlde English, uh, Englishy. Don't you remember from English class?" she asked.

"Nah," he said, shaking his head. "But I do remember the one about the guy seeing a dagger, though. Man, they must've been drinking some weird stuff in Olde Worlde Englandy. Probably grog, or mead, or some other odd-sounding beverage."

"Romeo and Juliet died to show the world how much they cared about each other," she informed him. "Juliet faked her own death with a temporary poison thing, but Romeo found her and thought she really died, and took his own life to be reunited with her in the afterlife." She tilted her head pensively. "It's kinda like us really if you think about it," she said. "I mean, we're going to…" She didn't even complete the sentence before the tears had started to fall again.

She felt the strength of Xander's arms around her, circling her body and allowing herself to nestle there, wishing that all of this would just go away. She knew that she was scared, that she was terrified of what could happen to them if this plan failed. But she knew he felt the same. He had always done his best to stop her from being sad, or worried, or scared. Throughout all of this, he'd been there for her, though, and she appreciated that more than she'd ever be able to tell him. She hoped that he felt at least a little reassurance from her presence, from her arms that held him so tightly around his waist, because while he stayed strong for her, this was the only thing she had to give back.

"Vampires never wear wristwatches," Xander said suddenly, surprising her out of her thoughts. "You ever notice that?"

"No…" she sniffed, pulling out of his arms, wiping her tears away with the sleeve of her outfit feeling the harsh leather sleeve against her soft skin, which she noticed seemed to be growing paler by the minute. "I guess not."

"I thought they might," he said curiously. "Or, you know, have some kind of blank clock face with 'Daylight' at the top and a hand slowly ticking towards it," he explained.

"Like that one you have for mealtimes?"

"Hey, that's a legitimate piece of equipment," he said defensively. "But seriously, though, how do they know?" he asked. "It's not like they can just stick a hand out of the window and think 'wow, better stay in now, and while I'm at it I'll light this cigar with my finger'. They have to know somehow," he continued, hoping somehow that the words that were falling out of his mouth would somehow ease the tension and frustration he knew they were both feeling, hoping that something familiar like babbling would remedy her anxiety, not to mention his own.

"Maybe they just know," she suggested, drawing in a breath that she didn't whether she needed or just to prove she still could, wiping at her eyes stubbornly. "Maybe it's just like a sense they have. I mean, they are like animals," she told him. "What about you?" she asked. "Have you got the super hearing, or the amplified sense of smell yet?" She wrinkled her face. "Pee-eew," she said. "That's something I do not need."

"Yeah, I've had this odour of rotting flesh coupled with freshly baked bread in my nose ever since we came back around the corner," he told her, realising when he saw the sadness and fear in her eyes that his idea of trying to take her mind off what was happening was currently not working.

He reached up to her face, rubbing softly at the area just below her eyes with his thumbs, her skin soft and cold and he could have sworn he felt her breath hitch, but maybe that was just wishful thinking. "You know what I would do if I had one of those watches?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. "I'd wind the hand right round to 'Daylight', stop the rain, bring on the sun, just to get this over with and to stop you feeling like this," he told her, firmly and seriously. "I would do anything to stop you crying."

She allowed him a small smile, one that was tired and unhappy, but still a smile. "Really?" she asked.

He grinned, "Well, almost anything," he told her. "I mean, I'd never make out with Spike or anything, I have my limits, but…yeah," he told her. "I'm sorry that you didn't already know that."

"I kinda did," she told him, "Not the Spike thing because, ew, gross…I just wanted to hear you say it."

* * *

Sheltering in the doorway of the back entrance to the Bronze, Willow and Xander sat together waiting for the storm to break and for the sun to come up, in no particular order. They huddled together underneath the canopy over the door, keeping dry, but not for warmth. It turned out one of the advantages to being a vampire was not feeling the cold, but it did bring up the question of whether or not they'd get the flu when and if they did return to their own world. Huddling together, their arms around one another, it somehow helped the overwhelming sense of gloom they felt was far worse. It didn't stop it – if anything it had increased every minute they were left in limbo – but it made it a little easier to stand.

"…And so Montague and Capulet joined hands and vowed never to be enemies again in remembrance of their dead children," Willow finished with a self-satisfied smile. "The end."

"Maybe it was just Mr. Michaelson reading it in that station announcer voice of his," Xander told her, "but I preferred it the way you tell it. Still didn't understand it, though."

"What more do you want, Xander?" she asked him irritably, frustration at their situation coming out as anger. "Even cliftnotes put more detail into that story than I just did!"

"Moving pictures," he said with a shrug. "TV has killed my imagination. I'll rent the movie again when we get back, promise." He looked out at the still-falling rain with a frown. "At least they had that famous Californian sun we've all heard so much about, although it looks like it isn't going to appear here anytime soon."

"Actually they were Italian," she informed him. "Shakespeare set the play in Verona, originally."

"Italy's still a hotspot though, right?" he asked. "I mean, in all of those Mob movies you never see the Godfather looking under-tanned," he noted. He shook his head, a grimace on his face. "What if the sun doesn't come out?" he said suddenly. "Vampires can still walk on a cloudy day, can't they?"

"As long it's not direct sunlight, yeah."

"So what do we do?" he asked, feeling a panic rise in his chest. "What if we have to wait another day? What if this dimension is an eternal night kinda deal? Remember when we saw that Al Pacino movie? The one where he's in Alaska and it's always daylight and he can't sleep? What if it's like that here? Only, you know, in reverse."

"Xander, calm down…" she said soothingly, rubbing his arm.

He wasn't taking much notice of her now, though. He had already spotted the two stakes he had previously chosen for their demise lying on the ground a few feet away, and before she could stop him he was on his feet and picking them up. Fisting them both, he quickly jogged back to her, dashing under the canopy that was their refuge.

"I'm tired of waiting for the sun to put his hat on," he said harshly, thrusting one of the stakes for her to take. "I say we end this now!"

Willow was tired, too. Tired of the rain, and tired of the waiting, and tired of the fear that she might be wrong and that they might end up really, **really** dead, instead of **undead**. Perhaps that's why she stood, brushing any loose bits of garbage that drifted into their hiding place off her leather outfit, and took the stake tentatively.

She knew she felt the same way he did. She was worried that the longer they waited, the more chance there was of her wanting to remain in this world as her soul slowly left her body and flowed away with the rain down the storm drains. She figured that she was okay for now, that the dark thoughts she was having were okay, because vampires – **real** vampires – weren't crazy enough to take their own lives.

She tilted her head as she grasped it tighter in her palm, the feeling of the wood against her skin strangely familiar and reassuring. "I suppose it's as good a way as any," she said. "So how do you wanna do this?" she asked. "Who goes first?"

"This isn't Russian Roulette, Will," he told her. "I thought we could, y'know, do each other," he suggested. "I mean, biology another of my growing list of not-very-strong points. I don't think I could **find** my heart, let alone stab myself through it with a sharp wooden object."

"And you think that I could?" she asked with wide eyes. "You know, Giles once told me of this young Slayer that…" she trailed off. "Okay, possibly not the time for stories…"

And then, just as quickly as it seemed to Xander that this strong and confident Willow had appeared while he had been away in Oxnard, the shy, bashful version shone through as she lowered her head, eyes downcast for a minute. "Harder than stabbing myself…" she said quietly, her voice carrying in the wind. "…Would be stabbing you," she told him truthfully, her eyes big as she looked back up at him, emotion raging in the greenness. "I mean, at least I wouldn't see me doing it. Looking at me with my big, judgey eyes…" she ran a hand along one of the lapels of his jacket. "…But I could stand it a lot more than I could stand doing it to you."

Xander knew that the emotion of the situation was overwhelming her. How could it not? She probably never thought that she would have to do something like this in her whole life, but he wasn't so sure. He had already slain one of his best friends this lifetime, staked Jesse, although if that girl hadn't pushed past him, he wasn't sure he could have gone through with it. He figured that this time should be easier, right? Second time around and all that? Since Jesse, he had hardly been lazy when it came to vanquishing demons and killing vampires, as well as the people they had been before the creatures had taken over their bodies. He felt he had grown tougher inside and more able to make those kind of decisions.

The trick to it, Giles had once told him, was to remember that the person staring back at you was just a demon wearing their victim's skin. This time it wasn't that clear-cut. The person standing in front of him, currently a vampire or not, was still Willow. **His** Willow from their own world. To kill her meant he would be dispatching the whole enchilada, with added soul.

He caught the hand that still touched the leather of his jacket and held it in his firmly. "Willow, in case we don't make it…" he started in a broken voice.

"I thought you said you had faith in me!" Willow spluttered nervously. "You-you said—"

"Just listen to me, alright!" Xander snapped suddenly. "This is hard enough for me to say as it is and, for the record, I could not have more faith in anyone right now." He paused, closing his eyes briefly as he put his head down, still holding her hand in his. He opened his eyes again slowly bringing them up to rest on her face, his expression serious, making sure that if this was the last time they'd see each other, speak to each other, he wanted her to know…well, everything.

He guessed she knew that whatever was coming was serious, because if he wasn't joking around…it was time to be scared. He had made it clear that she needed to be quiet now, which in itself was probably a mystery. In all of the years they had known each other, he had never said that to her, never asked her to shush like her parents often had, or to just shut up, like his parents had told him. Well, perhaps once he had told her to conserve energy when she had been ill, or back in school when she gave him a detailed analysis of why Superman couldn't exist. Indeed, he still had the original flip charts to prove it.

He had always loved the sound of her voice. The strong yet vulnerable tones, and the way they made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. He loved hearing her theories on anything from the mysteries of the universe to why toast always lands butter side up when dropped. One mark of his love for her, the intensity of his feelings, was the fact that he could hear it everywhere at times, sometimes on purpose and sometimes when he least wanted to. Someone completely different would be talking to him, but it would be Willow's voice they would be speaking in, which was kinda weird at times, especially when it was Principal Snyder giving him a hard time about one thing or another, but he had gotten used to it.

He noticed that they had also started speaking like each other at different times. It wouldn't be anything recognisable to the untrained eye of someone who wasn't as well-versed in their Willow/Xander studies, but Willow would say something sharp and witty that made Xander especially proud, or he would recite something in Science class that he had heard her say before, word for word, that made her grin in that cute way she had. Phrases were used between them that couldn't be determined how they originated, words made up that only they knew the meanings of, like speaking in a code, and he loved that about them and their friendship. He had to make a point to tell her that, if they ever made it out of this freaky world.

"In case we don't make it," he repeated firmly, his voice unwilling to brook any argument from her. "I just want you to know that I'm glad to have spent my life with you," he told her emotionally. "From the moment we met, right up to the moment we part, whenever that is, I'm glad that it's you in this position and nobody else because it wouldn't have meant nearly as much, and wouldn't be half as hard. I'd rather die **with** you than **before** you, because there is no way that I could bear to live in a world without **you** in it. And I mean the real **you**, not some evil wannabe you."

Willow listened to every word he was saying with a wishful ear. She wished that he had said this a long time ago, at some time when they weren't possibly about to become two piles of dust on the cold and wet sidewalk outside of the Bronze.

So much of her time had been spent pining, longing, hoping for him to notice her as more than Willow, his best bud. She had wanted him to see her as someone more than that, someone who he could have been attracted to, could have felt that spark with. She'd wanted him to feel like this when they were both single and available, when she felt like she would die if Xander Harris didn't love her back. Things could have been so different for them.

She felt different about her crush on him now. For a start, she knew it wasn't just a crush, she knew it went deeper than that, and she knew she would always feel like that. But she had moved on, realised that she had to do in order to keep her sanity intact. Oz was different to Xander, and that's what she needed. Oz was caring and thoughtful, while Xander had been oblivious to her feelings for all those years.

But every feeling she had still came back to him in some way or another. A strong connection like the one they shared bound them together, and couldn't be eradicated by other people in their lives, or drifting a little further away from each other.

It may have sounded crazy, but sometimes…sometimes she could almost swear that when she was alone…he was there, talking to her. Wherever she may be, whether it was on vacation with her family, walking through the school halls, or even crying in the girl's bathroom, she would see him standing in the corner somewhere quietly. He would say something funny that would make her laugh out loud, or something romantic that made her feel like her knees would buckle, and then would come the disappointing realisation that she had been dreaming it all. This could be the last time for all that, though.

In that instant, she rushed forward without any of the awkward hesitation she was so used to in herself, without thinking. She had a hand on either side of his face, and she was kissing him before she knew it, before she could have stopped herself. Her skin had been starting to feel numb as she became less and less able to feel the climate in her vampire state, but now it felt like she was on fire. Her lips were pressed against his in the most crushing but fulfilling kiss she had ever experienced.

She could feel the surprise in his lips, the way he tensed suddenly as she had launched herself at him. But when he responded, and she felt his arms wrap around her body tightly and possessively she felt her stomach flip in the most delicious way.

This kiss was everything she had ever wanted a kiss to be. It was the stuff romance novels were written about, what movies had promised of love and romance and passion. It wasn't that she hadn't felt anything when she kissed Oz, because he was sweet and funny and cute, and she loved kissing him because it was nice and made her feel happy and left her with a smile on her face when she went to sleep at night. But this was off the charts for her. The very situation she was in dictated that her feelings would never reach this level again. It was powerful and instinctual and what she felt the most was that this kiss was coming from **her**, not from her vampire self.

Xander wasn't quite sure what was happening at first. One second he was baring his soul, telling her everything he thought he never would, and the next thing he knew she was all he could taste. Her lips were hard against his, cold from the weather and the lack of blood pumping around her body from her non-beating heart, but her hands that were touching his skin made it worthwhile.

He hadn't been expecting it, because, after all, she was the sensible one. Other than their slip up earlier when they first realised they were together in this world, she had been the one who was keeping them on track and away from the smooching, which was a good thing, because the more time they were spending here without the complexities of their normal lives, the harder he was finding it to keep their relationship in the strictly-friends realm.

His arms quickly came around her waist tightly, pulling her to him, closer and closer until he thought they would fall over but he felt the hard surface of the doorway they had been sheltering in against his back so he didn't worry about that. He had never known anything like this, something so full of everything he was feeling, and everything he didn't know she still felt. He had felt lust before, all of those times in the janitor's closet with Cordelia. He had felt passion before, when he had encountered Faith that night. And he had felt something he thought he was love when Buffy came into their lives. But all of that…it was nothing compared to what he felt now.

Her mouth opened beneath his, warm and inviting, and her hands ran along his shoulders, working their way around his neck to wind her fingers in the hair at the nape of it. His fingers gripped at her hips, digging into the leather and the tiny bit of skin that was on show, and he felt her sigh into his mouth. His tongue met hers, and he felt a tingle run down his spine at the contact, deepening the kiss and wishing it would never end.

Willow leaned into him, their bodies touching everywhere, separated only by the clothing they both wore, and she felt it was all just a blur of arms and hands and legs and lips and tongues. Not that she was complaining. She couldn't keep a thought in her head for long enough to even muster up anything that would resemble a complaint.

She didn't know if it was the kiss, or if it was the impending death situation, or if it was just him…or maybe it was a combination of all three…but she wanted to remember every single moment of their time together right now. She tried to get her brain into gear for long enough to run through everything they had been through, frightened in case anything was left out.

But all she could see was the moment they found themselves in now. All she could see was herself in Xander's arms, and that was all that mattered.

They had lived more in 19 years than most people had or would ever do, and they did every bit of it together. A quick 'see you around' didn't really seem appropriate. And if this was going to be the last moments they lived in this or any other world, they were going to make them count. They were going to do what they wished they had done in life, even if they were technically dead in these bodies. If this was really going to be it for them, the last things they wanted to remember were each other.

Xander reluctantly pulled away, his arms still wrapped around her waist, taking in large gulps of air he wasn't sure whether he needed or if it was just a vain attempt to stop the world from spinning, something he had felt start as soon as their lips had met. "It's weird that when I finally get something…" he said quietly, his tone sad, "…something that I'll remember for the rest of my life…my life could be over in a few minutes," he told her soberly. "They'll be no time left to relive it."

Holding back tears that were desperate to spill for what felt like the hundredth time that night, she kissed him again, this time soft and sweet and brief. "Wherever we are," she told him seriously, "I'll remember this forever," she said. "It'll never leave me, Xander…no matter where I go, it'll always be a part of me."

He held her for a moment longer, not wanting to put off the inevitable any longer than he had to, if only to stop her from looking so sad than anything else. The stakes that they had been holding previous to their romantic encounter had fallen to the ground while they had been so engrossed in each other, and he bent to pick them up, handing one to Willow and fisting the other tightly.

"So, I guess it's pointy sticks at zero paces time," he said ominously. "Are you ready?" he asked.

"Nope," she told him, a tight, nervous smile on her face. "You?"

"Not in the least," he replied.

His hand came up to lightly graze her cheek as he leaned forward and placed a kiss on her lips, tasting salt from the tears that were now falling from her eyes unknown. He reached out to take her free hand and intertwined his fingers with hers tightly as their eyes locked together, each of them instinctively bringing their stakes up to chest-level, the tips aimed directly at the fatal spot beneath their breasts, a symmetrical action that looked oddly sweet, in spite of what they were about to do.

"Bye, Will," he said gently.

"Goodbye, Xander," she whispered back.

Looking into each other's eyes, they saw their entire lives before them. It was like a time bubble surrounding them that was playing back the years, rewinding time, from their first meeting at Kindergarten through to high school. The shared memories of meeting Buffy and the numerous battles they had undertaken over the years. The various people that had come in and out of their lives, the demons they had battled, the heartbreaks and happiness they had gone through and shared. All the conversations they'd shared over the years, all the trouble they had gotten into and dug themselves out of. There was every moment that had meant everything, and every moment that hadn't

With a squeeze of the entwined hands that she wasn't sure was her doing or his, they knew the time had come. They both closed their eyes as she clung onto his hand with everything she was worth as they each thrust forward with a lethal hand, their eyes opening at the exact same moment to watch the other's diminishing forms.

The stakes penetrated their bodies simultaneously. First, the wooden objects broke skin, then muscle, and then that final internal organ that had never seemed so vital until now. It was like they could each feel every single grain imprinted on the weapons, could feel every splinter puncturing their skins, and their eyes opened at the exact same moment to watch the other's quickly diminishing forms.

Xander felt Willow's hand suddenly pull out of his grasp, and he desperately and blindly grabbed for her again, his panic overwhelming when he couldn't feel her skin on his. But before he could even move his arm, her hand was gone, crumbling away into the night air as her smaller form fell foul of the deadly wound first, the rest of her arm next. His eyes widened in horror as they darted from her terrified expression to her disintegrating body, unaware that his own body was following the same path until the pain tore through his entire being and soul.

He hadn't noticed until now that he was screaming, or that she was screaming, too. But now their agonising screams seemed like an ungodly noise as their bodies shattered before the others very eyes, the sound seemingly growing louder as their bodies disappeared, instead of lessening. The screams seemed louder than anything they had ever heard being emitted from any normal vampire they had witnessed being dusted in the past, but maybe that was just because it was their own pain instead of someone else's. Vampires were soulless creatures whose emotions were already numbed when the Slayer or a Slayerette dispatched them, but Willow and Xander had no such luxury.

Any passer-by on the streets of Sunnydale that night - any passer-by foolish enough to be venturing out past curfew, anyway - would have seen a strange sight.

Two humans standing in the middle of the street, apparently Goths if judged by their appearances, who were pointing thick, sharpened, wooden sticks at each other's chests. It would have looked like they were going to kill each other, although the expressions on their faces pointed to the extreme opposite, and although the bodies were soon gone, two strange green outlines remained.

The bright light would have blinded the passer-by as the shapes disappeared into thin air. They would have been surprised that the rain that had been falling and drenching the pair, at that exact moment when their bodies were no more, would have strangely stopped, only to be replaced by a cool winter wind. The breeze was gentle, but forceful enough to whip the amalgamated pile of dust that was Willow and Xander into the night air where the remains of the vampire lovers would drift endlessly together, joined with one another, for the rest of time.

* * *

Xander felt his body connect to the ground with a small bump as he landed back in the cemetery, finding himself in the exact same spot from whence he left. He opened his eyes and a wave of relief, as well as sweat, washed over him as he realised he was still alive. Or existing, at least, in some capacity. He touched his face, then his arms, then his torso, making sure everything was still there, and that nothing had been left behind in the other dimension. He suddenly had a vision of being left without some vital part of his body that he'd miss more than he'd care to admit to anyone, and breathed a sigh of relief when everything seemed to be in place.

That's when he looked up, something catching his eye in the atmosphere a few inches above him. He saw a large green mass, and began to panic again. It seemed to form into a shape…_a human-shaped shape_, he thought vaguely, as the shape plummeted down and landed squarely on top of him. A stream of red hair filled his face, hindering his breathing, and he blew it away from his nostrils and mouth, the thought of being suffocated not such an attractive prospect after what he had just experienced, but he did manage to catch the scent of its owner.

It was Willow.

"Wssshaaarrgh!" she screamed loudly as she awoke from the effects of the magic.

"Aawwlllitttheplees," mumbled Xander from beneath another curtain of hair that covered his face.

"Oh, God!" Willow said aloud, not at all comfortable where she had landed and terrified at the voices she was hearing on top of that. "What is that?" she questioned herself. "Where am I?"

Xander once more blew the hair away from his mouth, at least for long enough to get his words out. "Will, little help please?"

Willow looked around, relieved that they were both okay and that he was nearby, some of the panic dispelled. "Xander, is that you?" she asked. "Where—?"

"Under you," he replied, interrupting her quickly.

"Oh," she said to herself, the notion making sense in her head, "So that's what's sticking in my…" she trailed off, suddenly nervous and a blush creeping across her cheeks. "I should move, shouldn't I?"

"I would like that," he replied dryly. "Not that I'm complaining, but neither of us are the same weight we once were in Kindergarten," he said as she rolled away from him, sitting cross-legged on the grass next to him.

"Phew," he said, sitting up and taking deep breaths full of the polluted Sunnydale air. "Oxygen once more."

"Hey, last week you said I had lost weight!" she snapped suddenly, only just realising what he said, but forgiving herself for the delayed reaction due to what they had both just been through. "Did I have anything to eat back there?" she asked thoughtfully, suddenly worried as her hands came to her hips, checking for any excess baggage she was carrying from the trip. "I wonder how much human flesh adds to the hips," she wondered aloud. "I mean, blood alone must be pumped with calories. It's okay for the vampires, with the whole slim bodies for eternity and all, but…"

"Is this it? Are we back?" Xander asked. "I think we made it, Dorothy," he said with a grin slowly spreading across his face.

"Yeah, same old cemetery," Willow replied, looking around the strangely comforting landscape with the same mixture of mixed happiness and disbelief in her voice.

"Hey, how long do you think we've been gone?" he asked curiously. "A lot of these dimensions have weird time differences. We could have landed three weeks into the future, or even three years. We could even have arrived back before we left."

"Its 2am!" she exclaimed with a yelp as she checked her wristwatch.

"Five hours? Is that it!" he said, weirdly disappointed. "Hey, was that dimension in Europe by any chance?"

"Oh, no," Willow said to herself miserably. "I missed Oz's gig!"

"Aww," Xander moaned with a pout. "I wanted to be Future Man and tell amazing stories of the past."

"Well, I'm sure some people have been asleep for five hours, you could wake them up and tell them all about it," Willow suggested with a smile.

He smiled back at her, but he didn't reply. Instead, he leant back and rested his hands on the hard dirt, propping himself up as he looked up at the stars. A moment later, he was lying on his back, his body tired and weary and wanting nothing more than to rest for at least a week.

He didn't have to wait long before Willow had joined him, shuffling herself and lying down beside him, her breathing a good sound for him to hear, something he didn't realise he'd missed so much when they were in the other place. He knew what conversation was coming, but he also didn't want to be the one who started it. For now, it was a perfect moment, looking up at the stars with his best friend, and it was one that he wanted to enjoy.

They were both relieved that they had made it back in one piece, that they were still in the land of the living, but he wasn't quite sure they were ready to address the issues that had made themselves apparent during their jaunt to another world. The kisses and the feelings shared…they would always mean the world to Xander, and he suspected she felt the same way, but now wasn't the time to deal with that. Perhaps an unspoken bond was better until a time came when they could deal with their feelings in a different way.

"You still wanna be some kind of super hero?" Willow asked, breaking the silence and interrupting his contemplation.

"Nah," he told her, turning his head to look at her, grateful for the redness of her cheeks against the green on the lawn they were lying upon. "I think I'll hang up my cape and underpants for good this time," he said thoughtfully. "Being super has two edges to it. I'm pretty sure Buffy would relinquish her slayer powers in a second if she had the chance, and Oz has been trying to find a way to calm his inner Muttley ever since he found out about it. You seem okay with the whole witchy woman thing, though, right?" he asked.

"I love it," she told him honestly, a smile coming to her face. "There's so much to learn. It's a whole new world to me. I mean, sometimes, y'know, certain spells do pack quite a punch and I'm tempted just to say 'that's it', but then some big beastie will crawl out of its pit and Buffy needs me to work some kind of mojo again, and sometimes I wish that responsibility would fall to someone else, but that means that I'd go back to being research girl and official hostage again. Besides, I like it. It makes me feel special, and I've never felt like that before. It's so wonderful, and this year has been like everything just falling into place."

"I guess I have an enviable power after all," he said, that adorable half smile on his face as he pondered their differences. "The power of normal life," he told her. "I can do anything I want. I mean, I took off for a whole summer, and it still didn't matter."

Willow looked at him, their eyes meeting in the darkness with the stars above them. "It mattered to me," she told him honestly. "I missed you."

"I missed you, too," he confessed. "But what I meant is… Everyone else is committed to fighting evil, they're tied to it in some way, but I can just walk away anytime I want."

Her eyes widened in concern. "But you won't, will you?" she asked worriedly.

"You'll have to do a lot more than unleash the fiery pits of hell in my backyard to get rid of me, Rosenberg," he told her with a smile.

Time seemed to stand still as they remained on the grass there, talking about everything they hadn't thought about in longer than they cared to mention. But, inevitably, Xander had to give in to his stomach that had been rumbling ever since they had been back in their other, and he commented that lying in a cemetery in the dead of the night without Slayer supervision probably wasn't the best idea.

Getting to his feet, he offered his hand and helped her to stand, perceptively noticing that the demon's slime was remarkably clean as he wiped the few traces of it he could find from his shirt, finding that grass and dirt were more prominent.

Willow grabbed the bag that was still lying on the grass in the same place she left it, shouldering it carefully with tired limbs. "So, no more Super Xander?" she asked. "Not even for the big Halloween party this year?"

"Nope," he replied. "I think it's time I laid my secret identity to rest."

"But I was gonna go as Super Girl," she told him with a grin.

"What about Oz?" Xander asked, feeling the joviality he had been feeling disappear as if it had just been staked. "What's he going as?"

"Oz?" she said. "Not really into the whole dress-up thing." They began walking, and she looked at him excitedly. "Ooh, hey, what about 'Bonnie and Clyde'?" she asked enthusiastically.

"Yeah," he said distractedly. "I think my Grandpa has some of those old suits from the thirties. We could be outlaws, fighting…well, the law. Giving in to our wild urges no matter who…" he trailed off, his hands in his pockets as he stopped walking, unable to handle not dealing with this any longer. "Willow, can we talk?"

She stopped just ahead of him when she realised she was walking alone, taking a deep breath as she started back to him with small steps. "I'm going to have to call Oz when I get home," she told him. "He'll be wondering why I wasn't at the gig." She reached him quicker than she wanted to, because she still didn't know if this was such a great idea, but that didn't stop her from reaching for his hand. "Not that there aren't **other** bands I like just as much as the 'Dingoes', you understand," she explained, her eyes conveying her meaning. "Some maybe even **more** so…but I'm supporting **them** right now and I don't think it would be fair if I started…"

"…Going to other gigs," he finished soberly.

"Not that I wouldn't want to," she said. "But maybe I like them. And someday I may like someone else more, but for now I want to be the groupie, no matter how enticing the melodies of the other groups are. Do you understand?"

He lowered his eyes from hers, his level of understanding rising. "Yeah."

"Good," she said, relieved. "Because I wasn't sure where to go with that analogy next. Don't wanna tie myself up in metaphors I can't get out of," she told him with a smile.

"The Dingoes are one of the best around, Will," he said sincerely. "I'd rather you be with them than anyone else whose music might hurt you…your eardrums…I mean," he amended quickly. He shrugged, waving his hand in the air. "Whatever. I can't think right now. My head's…" he trailed off as something caught his attention somewhere close by. "What's that noise?" he asked.

They looked around, listening for any signal as to where they were supposed to be looking. The strange sound, something that was akin to some sort of crying, seemed to be coming from the immediate area.

Xander carefully took in their surroundings, and moved slowly towards the partially demolished mausoleum, carefully pressing an ear to the cold stone wall. "What ever it is, it's inside here," he told her. "Where's the door?" he asked quickly.

"Pick one!" Willow told him, herself running through one of the holes Buffy had made earlier in the evening while fighting the demon.

Xander soon joined her, and they found themselves face to face to with Nancy Esposito again. The girl in front of them now, though, wasn't the strong, confident Nancy of the vampire dimension they had recently vacationed in, but the human they had known before.

This Nancy was a wreck. She was sitting in a corner of the crypt, hugging her knees to her chest and sobbing, mumbling incoherently. She wore a dark blue vest, and green cargo pants that were slightly tattered from the fight the vampire version of her had told them of, and Xander cursed himself for not realising what had happened sooner, for not hearing or seeing her in the mausoleum he had been lying behind since they had returned.

"This must be where she reappeared after we sent her back," Willow whispered to him.

"We have to get her home," Xander said, obviously concerned. He looked at Willow, who nodded her agreement, and he slowly started towards Nancy, carefully and tentatively. He stopped when he saw her eyes bulge at his approach, her face that was blotched from crying turning a deeper shade of red as she let out a scream.

"Stay away!" she yelled at him, trying in vain to hide herself further in the corner.

"Nancy," he said softly. "Hey, it's me, Xander, remember?" he said, bending down to her level and proffering his hand toward her.

"X-Xander?" she asked. "Good Xander or bad Xander?" she said suddenly, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. "Answer me, good or b-bad!?" she screamed at him, almost spitting in his face.

"Good," he replied with a brief smile. "Definitely good Xander," he told her. "Check with the Police, not so much as a parking ticket. Nothing to worry about, you're home now."

"Let me see your teeth!" Nancy asked urgently.

"Calm down," he said gently. "There's no need to see my…tughshhh…" Xander spluttered as Nancy thrust her hand into his mouth. She pulled up his top lip and examined his molars with curious eyes and probing fingers that weren't altogether comfortable.

Willow rushed over, standing between them to intervene. "Hey, stop that!" she yelled.

Xander was crouched in a very peculiar position; he sat on the cold, stone floor on his hands and knees with Nancy's finger running along his gums searching for signs of fangs. He saw Willow out of the corner of his eye trying to stop her, but Xander waved his hand in the air, gesturing to his friend just to let her be for a few minutes.

"You're clean," Nancy grumbled, moving away from him. "No fangs."

"Thanks," he said uncomfortably. "And not a cent exchanged hands. I'm definitely coming back to you for my monthly check-up."

"Now for you!" Nancy said suddenly, getting up and advancing towards Willow with the same outstretched finger still dripping with saliva.

Xander quickly intercepted the panicking girl, standing in front of Willow protectively. "I…don't believe that's necessary," he told Nancy. "I can vouch for her. She's with me. Known her seventeen years and she's never once tried to bite me," he jabbered nervously.

"Except for when I was a vampire a few hours ago," Willow added.

"But you're all better now," he whispered to her harshly, his eyes wide and jaw clenched. "Aren't you, Will?"

"Well," she began thoughtfully. "I think my vampire self also may have tried to get a bit of fang action last year," she told him. "Oh, and there were a couple of times back in kindergarten, so truthfully, I don't think—"

"Not helping here, Will," he told her in an urgent tone. "Now how about you just flash your pearly whites for the nice lady?" he suggested.

Willow rolled her eyes, before giving a false broad smile that felt incredibly silly, and she hoped Buffy wasn't out hiding in the bushes, watching them and having a good laugh at her expense. She realised that she hadn't smiled that much since Graduation Day, and it only seemed that she smiled like that – a real, wide, true smile - for Xander. Willow didn't like Nancy that much, and maybe it was because she reminded her of Cordelia. Another girl who was too worried about hair and shoes to be aware of what's going on around her, and another Cordelia wasn't what Xander needed right now. Perhaps he still hadn't got over their break-up, despite all he had said.

"You're okay," Nancy decided, conceding after a quick visual examination of Willow's teeth.

"Gee, thanks," Willow said, a sarcastic edge to her voice. "I was beginning to feel like a game show host for a minute there…"

"Ooof!" Xander said suddenly, feeling Nancy launch herself at him, her head on his chest as she began crying again. "Why do you girls have to keep doing that to me?" he wondered aloud. "And, woah, what strength I might add."

"Xandeeeey!" Nancy cried, weeping into his shirt. "Take me home!"

Xander put his arm around her, leading her out of the tomb. "Okay, time to hit they hay, then," he told her. "Say, would you like to come for a coffee tomorrow?" he asked. "Well, I guess it's today now…but we can talk about what happened back there, and what you definitely should **not** tell people if you want to stay on this side of that big asylum out near Ventura."

"Okay…" Nancy said, looking up at him and nodding slowly. "Sure."

"Hey, Will," Xander said, looking around for his best friend. "You coming?" he asked, watching her as she scraped a sample of the slime from the wall, picking up the last remnants of demon pieces and putting them in the sample jars she kept in her bag, just in case.

"Be along in a minute," she said, distracted by what she was doing. "I just need to take some more samples, and perhaps a couple of these horn bits and maybe some—"

"But the demon will still be in tiny pieces tomorrow," he protested. "Say, how about after I leave Nancy in bed…" his eyes widened and he suddenly felt very embarrassed under the glares he was receiving from both girls. "I mean, **her** bed…**her** bed…" he corrected quickly, before turning his attention back to the original conversation. "…We finally get to watch the sunrise together," he asked Willow. "Only, this time we'll be alive to see it through," he finished.

Willow smiled at him, shrugging her shoulders. "Seen one demon splashed all over the walls of a tomb, seen them all, I guess," she said, packing her samples away in her bag.

She headed out of the mausoleum as they started across the cemetery, heading for Nancy's dorm room. She ran to catch up, ducking her head and taking residence underneath Xander's free arm.

All three of them, a little worse for wear but feeling they had learnt something, ventured out into the cool morning air.

The End


End file.
